Unpacking Brand Strategy: A Deep Dive

Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan didn’t start Gymshark with millions in funding or a brand bible. They started in a garage – just a couple of students, a sewing machine, and a vision. Ben learned to sew from his grandma, screen-printed tees in his spare time, and backed it all with a clear idea of who they were building for. Their success wasn’t accidental – it was built with a proper brand strategy in place.

From day one, Gymshark was building a movement. A loyal community. And yes, selling clothes too. A brand that understood exactly who it was for and what it stood for.

Brand strategy is what separates the ones who launch and hope from the ones who scale and stick. It’s not your logo, it’s not your typeface, and it’s definitely not your Canva templates. It’s the thinking that sits underneath it all. The reason people care, engage, buy, and stay loyal.

Brand strategy is the difference between being another forgettable business and becoming a brand people genuinely give a sh*t about. In this guide, we’ll dig into the triggers that signal it’s time to get serious about strategy, how to translate insight into action, and why aligning branding with bigger business objectives is non-negotiable. Whether you’re launching something new or overhauling a tired identity, it starts here.

Understanding the Triggers for a Brand Strategy

A lot of brands don’t start out broken – they just drift. What begins as a clear idea slowly gets buried under trend-chasing, half-baked messaging, and a dozen conflicting voices. That’s when the cracks show. Engagement drops, the team’s confused, and customers aren’t quite sure what you stand for anymore.

That’s your cue: time to go back to the source. Time to revisit the core and build your brand strategy (or rebuild) from the inside out. It starts with Brand DNA.

What is Brand DNA?

Brand DNA is the heartbeat of everything you do. It’s not something you just randomly cobble together. It’s the collection of core elements that define your brand’s identity and set the tone for how you show up:

• Mission: Why you exist (“to make money” doesn’t count).
  
  

• Vision: Where you’re heading in the long run. What do you want to be famous for?
  
  

• Values: The principles that guide every move you make.
  
  

• Tone of Voice: The human traits your brand embodies.
  
  

• Proposition: The unique place you claim in the market.

Get this bit wrong, and nothing else matters. Get it right, and you’ve got a foundation that keeps everything consistent and impossible to ignore.

When to Revisit or Develop a Brand Strategy

Even if you started with a solid strategy, things change. Markets evolve, audiences grow up (or grow tired), and the competition gets smarter. Here are three times you must rethink your approach:

👉 Market Evolution: New tech on the market, shifting consumer behaviour, or cultural upheavals can render old strategies obsolete overnight.

👉 Business Transformation: Mergers, acquisitions, new products or services – if your business pivots, your brand should too.

👉 Brand Misalignment: If what you’re saying doesn’t match what customers experience, you’ve got a problem worth fixing.

Signs Your Brand Strategy Needs Attention

A lot of brand strategies fail – and not because the ideas were bad. It’s usually because the execution’s sloppy, the direction’s vague, or the business doesn’t actually know who the hell it is. If you’re seeing any of these red flags, your brand strategy needs a serious tune-up:

🚩 Declining Engagement

If your audience is tuning out, the signs are usually loud and clear: likes are down, click-throughs tanking or email opens are flatlining. Sure, it’s easy to point fingers at the algorithm – but most of the time, that’s just a lazy excuse. It means your brand isn’t connecting. Your brand lost its spark and people don’t see themselves in it anymore. When that happens, you’re on your way to losing relevance.

🚩 Inconsistent Messaging

Different channels tell different stories. If your socials aren’t sharing the same story, same messaging, same tone of voice – it’s not going to work. Fragmented comms confuse people and confused people don’t buy.

🚩 Internal Confusion

Your team can’t explain who you are or what you stand for. When your team gives five different answers to “what do we stand for?” you’re misaligned and you’re literally leaking credibility. If your people don’t get the brand, how can your audience? Brand strategy should unify, not mystify.

🚩 You’re Blending In

If your brand could swap logos with any of your competitors and no one would notice, you’re not standing out in the way you should be. Strategy is what gives you an edge and a reason to be remembered.

Trust us – if you spot even one of these, it’s time to get your sh*t together.

From Insight to Action: Turning Strategy into Brand Reality

So you’ve nailed your brand strategy. You know your purpose, your audience, your tone, your positioning. You’ve got a look that hits, tools to keep it consistent, and a brand DNA that actually means something. Now what?

Here’s the truth most people miss: strategy isn’t the end – it’s the starting point. Once your brand strategy’s locked in, it’s time to get moving. This is where you shift gears and start building momentum. It’s not about more thinking. It’s about doing.

Translating Strategy into Action

This is where your brand shows up in the real world. Not as a logo. Not as a mission statement. But as a living, breathing experience.

It looks like:

• Internal rollouts that get your whole team aligned.

• Brand-led briefs that shape your campaigns, not tack them on as an afterthought.

• Messaging that sounds like you across every touchpoint – from TikTok captions to investor decks.

• Systems that make consistency easy.

Your brand strategy should guide every decision from this point on, not gather dust in a Google Drive.

And yes, down the line, it feeds into your marketing strategy. But don’t confuse the two.

• Brand strategy is who you are.

• Marketing strategy is how you communicate it.
  
  

One without the other? Doesn’t work. But don’t jump ahead. Nail the execution of your brand strategy first – then use it to steer everything else.

5 Steps to Implement Your Brand Strategy

1. Define Clear Objectives: Nail down what success looks like. Grow market share? Build awareness? Drive loyalty? Be specific.
   
   

2. Develop Strategic Initiatives: Identify the projects that will get you there – don’t try to do everything at once.
   
   

3. Assign Responsibilities: Make sure everyone knows who’s leading what, and hold them accountable.
   
   

4. Monitor Progress: Review performance regularly and tweak as needed. Strategy isn’t static.
   

5. Communicate Internally: If your team doesn’t know the plan, you can forget about consistent execution.

Putting Brand Strategy Into Practice: The Invisible Orthodontist

In case you didn’t already know, brand strategy isn’t a one-time thing you do once and forget. It’s something you revisit, refine, and rebuild as your business evolves. Case in point: The Invisible Orthodontist (TIO).

They weren’t a small startup. They were already operating across the UK, USA, Europe, and Australia. But after changes to their senior leadership team, it was clear something wasn’t clicking. Different territories were doing their own thing. Old branding was still knocking about. The internal teams didn’t agree on what the brand actually was or what it stood for.

That’s where we came in.

The mission?

Re-align the business. Rebuild the brand. And help them show up as one unified, strategic voice.

What we did:

• Ran internal brand workshops across global teams to get everyone on the same page.

• Rebranded the business to join up all silos under one clear identity.

• Created easy-to-use brand guidelines to lock in consistency.

• Hired a full-time marketing manager to own delivery and protect the brand going forward.

• Set up regular sales and marketing syncs to keep strategy from slipping through the cracks.
  

The result?

• One strong brand identity rolled out across every region.

• A proactive marketing function (finally leading the charge, not chasing it).

• Aligned teams who actually understand the brand and how to communicate it.

• A clear, consistent offer the market can trust and remember.

The point is this:

Rebrands aren’t just for broken businesses or fresh launches. TIO had been around for years but they knew it was time to take a hard look, realign, and do the work. There’s no shame in changing things up when it’s needed. In fact, there’s power in it.

Strong brands evolve. The smart ones do it before they get left behind.

Brand Strategy and the Bigger Business Picture

Your brand strategy isn’t a side hustle or a vanity project. It’s core to your business success. Every product decision, marketing move, and customer interaction feeds into how people perceive your brand and perception drives profit.

Something worth remembering? You don’t own your brand – your audience does. You don’t get to decide what people think of you. But brand strategy is your best shot at shaping that perception before someone else does. It’s how you influence what sticks and what gets remembered. So yeah, it’s in your best interest to give your brand every chance to show up with purpose. Leave it to chance, and you might not like the version the world creates for you.

Aligning Brand Strategy with Business Goals

A sh*thot brand strategy does three things:

👉 Synergy: Every branding initiative supports broader business objectives. No wasted effort.

👉 Consistency: Whether someone lands on your website, your Instagram, or your invoice, it all feels like the same brand.

👉 Adaptability: You evolve when markets change, but never lose your core identity.

Keeping Strategy Agile

Your brand DNA should be stable, but your tactics can change. As your audience shifts and culture moves, be ready to adapt. Consistency matters obviously, but so does staying relevant.

Having a mega brand strategy behind you that’s completely yours is your best chance at making it in today’s market. It’s the blueprint that shows you how to show up, who to show up for, and why anyone should give a sh*t.

Know when to revisit it. Know how to action it. Align it with where your business is actually heading. That’s how you build a brand people trust, talk about, and stick with.

Ready to build a brand strategy to be proud of?
Let’s make it happen. Get in touch with co&co and build something people actually care about.