You're a brand manager facing tough decisions. How can you ensure they align with the overall brand strategy?

As a brand manager, making tough decisions requires a balance between staying to the brand’s identity and adopting to the market’s changing dynamic.

One thing I’ve found helpful in making key decisions for a brand is aligning it with the brand’s values. Your copy, visual design, even influencer collaborations should align with your Brand DNA. As long as you have that foundation as a starting point, you can be confident that your decisions are aligned with who the brand is.

Data-Driven Decision Making: At the beginning of all decisions, there should be data. Understanding how customers perceive us and what they consider to be our unique selling points is crucial. We need to know why they prefer us over competitors and why they choose to shop with us. Authenticity: Authenticity is also very important, but we need to understand what “authentic” specifically means for our brand. Non-Negotiables: We must also know what we will never do as a brand and which topics we will not address. Core Business Context: There must always be a context with our core business. Consistency: We ensure consistency by using fluent devices in our communication.

Absolutely agree! A brand’s vision is its North Star, guiding every decision and ensuring alignment with long-term goals. In the digital age, performance metrics offer crucial insights that help steer the brand toward its vision. While it’s tempting to chase short-term digital gains, it’s essential to assess whether these actions support the brand’s long-term aspirations. Digital performance should enhance the brand’s journey toward its vision, not just provide immediate results. By integrating data-driven decisions with a clear vision, you can ensure your brand’s growth remains on the right path and aligned with your long-term goals.

Core values are the backbone of a brand’s identity and play a crucial role in maintaining consistency and authenticity Here’s how you can ensure every decision aligns with your brand’s core values: Understand Your Core Values Clearly. Integrate Values into Decision-Making. Train and Empower Your Team. Monitor and Evaluate. Lead by Example. Communicate Transparently By consistently aligning decisions with your core values, you reinforce your brand’s identity, build stronger customer relationships, and ensure long-term success.

It’s important to understand that core values are not just abstract ideals; they are practical tools that should influence every aspect of your brand’s strategy. When you make decisions that reinforce these values, you build a stronger connection with your audience, foster trust, and differentiate your brand in the marketplace. Each decision becomes an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to these values, creating a more authentic and resonant brand experience.

Core values are basics for any brand which it must communicate to the consumer indirectly .. a core value has to be clear at the inception of the brand itself to create an impact on the targeted segment as its journey will be long lasting if delivered with clarity. A core value acts like a backbone toh the brand.. as while on journey of the brand we can make many changes but the base remains strong for its success and progression. Hence brands core value should well thought, sought and an established process.

To make sure you stick to your brand’s core values: Stay consistent: Don’t make decisions that compromise your values for short-term gains. This can weaken your brand and hurt customer trust over time. Focus on long-term impact: Think about how each choice will affect your brand in the long run. Staying true to your values will keep your brand strong and trusted by customers. Regularly review: Frequently check to ensure all actions align with your core values, making adjustments when needed to stay true to what your brand stands for.

Let's be pragmatic - sometimes these decisions are time sensitive : Just ask this ONE question: Does it deliver against the brand promise to the consumer/end user?

True audience insights — both internal and external — gathered qualitatively and quantitatively will give you the foundation you need to understand what drives your brand, why it matters to people, why people make the choices they make in your category, and how you can meaningfully differentiate for growth.

Audience insights are truly a sine qua non; but maybe we should not forget insights from some truly great brands which didn't set much store by these Kichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota was not a very big fun of market research. Steve Jobs also didn't believe very much in audience insight. Both felt strongly customers didn't know what they truly wanted especially if they had to look into the future? So, the relevance of this may vary with industry. I posit that the more specialized the industry eg healthcare, aerospace, the more impactful the insight of the specialist consumer e.g. the heart surgeon? These companies probably do more research now, but the point is not to forget about the creative minds you have in your marketing department

Gaining consumer insight is very relevant to success in brand management. The needs, preferences, choices, desires and wants must be interrogated through online and offline methods including but not limited to research, online surveys, discussions, and engagements. Decisions should be made based on those consumer insights gained. The brand will also Interrogate culture, belief systems, and way of life of the audience. A brand must never be see to clash with the cultural heritage and beliefs of the audience. Insights drives better awareness on the audience and gives a good platform to deliver tailor fitted products that have been ascertained from insights. This is a good step for ultimate customer satisfaction.

Effectiveness of Communication is the Response it Evokes. Remember this and make decisions keeping this in forefront. It’s not your opinion that matters, it’s what the final consumer will get out of it. So check that. If their response is aligned with brand strategy, then your decision route is right. Think about it.

The most important thing to design the branding strategy is to know your target audience. How they perceive a product and what are their aspirations. In this digital era, you need to continuously engage with them and understand their online behavior as well. If you are able to analyse everything in detail,you will be able to craft a strategy which not only will your company into a big brand but also sustain the same in future as well.

Competitor activity tracking is very key to understanding what competition is offering and even gaining insights if they are engaging in unethical demarketing of your brand directly or indirectly using influencers. Competitors must never be overlooked or underestimated especially when their offers resonate loudly with the needs and choices of the audience. An example is Nokia once the most dominant mobile telephone company ignored competition and instead continued to use synbian Technology which was not in harmony with the needs of the audience. The lost very considerable market share. Another example is Kodak that actually created the digital but refused to produce it, the proffered to sell films. They lost their market share.

To be simple in communication, easy to access (online or on call or personal feel experience at outlets) with honest in price & quality will surely get brand the desired demand....its very simple for any brand to succeed by following the abovedaid

Being aware of the competitive landscape is crucial for strategic brand management. Your decisions should be informed by an understanding of competitors' actions and market trends, but not dictated by them. The goal is to recognize the context in which your brand operates and identify opportunities to differentiate and assert your unique position. This may involve making bold, calculated moves that set your brand apart, but these moves must always be aligned with your overall brand strategy to maintain coherence and drive long-term success.

Totally agree! Understanding the competitor is crucial in strategy formulation - recognizing their USP & knowing their strengths & weaknesses. We should anticipate not only their strategies but also their reaction to yours.

The idea behind tracking competitive activity is to not just always do better, but hear from a broader audience -- prospects for your brand -- on what's working for them. Life is too short to learn from your own experiences -- many brands may have already seen results on experiments in our pipeline. Branding, ironically, is best done with the customer at the forefront, and not the brand. Competitive research allows us to build a stronger persona and continually refine it, which in turn helps us make the right decisions for the brand.

Key KPI's like Customer lifetime value CLV, Net promoter score NPS, Customer Acquisition Cost CAC reveal key metrics about a brand performance. These metric should be tracked over time and assessed if improvements occur or not. Improvements in metrics mean the brand engagement is doing much better and that's a good way to sustain brand loyalty.

Today, E-retail media allows us to have measurable KPIs, the most important thing is to check that the KPIs we use from one campaign to another are built on identical criteria. The problem in France is that there are several monetization platforms that have the same vocabulary for KPIs, however the criteria, the periods, the field of analysis in time are different, which complicates the analysis.

Measuring impact is a vital component of brand management. By establishing clear metrics for success and tracking progress, we can ensure our decisions align with our brand strategy and drive growth. At JBCN, we use a data-driven approach to measure impact and refine our strategy. I'm interested in hearing from others - what are some other ways to measure impact and ensure decisions are driving results?

I should be aligned with competitive environments along with some specific strategic decisions, so your objectives will be helpful

Typically, you would use a checklist encompassing all key brand strategy goals and metrics to ensure alignment. However, there is a highly effective shortcut to streamline this process. When evaluating any activity, simply ask yourself: "Which strategy does this support?" It requires some experience to proficiently assess activities against various potential strategies, but the outcome is highly rewarding.

As David Aaker once said "A great brand is a story that is never completely told". So make sure every decision you make is another compelling story in the ongoing chapter

An example which comes to my mind is the Unilever's power brand strategy where they reduced the number of brands to only 30 to focus on key elements and utilise the resources better. Strategic alignment for furthering the broader perspective is crucial. However the power of focus is very difficult to drive as it counters the facet of the gurus who sight the need to have a Plan B. Question is do you really need a plan B when you are strategically aligned with the brand and company goals