Six Steps to an Unshakeable Strategy

If you managed to read our last article on the power of brand strategy, you’ll know that the attributes of a strong brand are authenticity, consistency, relevance, distinctiveness and durability. But no one can get there overnight. It demands a thorough understanding of the context in which the brand operates. This is far more valuable than you may think. For us to Design Tomorrow for our clients and ourselves, we need to be aligned to the world around us. 

At Moving Brands we achieve this by conducting a deep analysis of a brand’s reason for existence, its values, target audiences, industry landscape, and the environment in which it will live in order to harmonise its behaviour with its surroundings, fulfilling our promise of building regenerative, enduring brands. 

Yet a solid foundation is just the beginning, it’s how you articulate that to the world that separates the good from great. We harness the power of storytelling to forge emotional connections with each brand’s audiences. 

Together, our strategists, creatives and technologists work hand-in-hand to create worlds that invite people in, allowing them to see themselves in the brand and feel a sense of belonging. We give meaning to their experiences, helping them solve problems and add value to their lives. We inspire, motivate, and influence, shaping culture and society on a larger scale. 

The steps that keep us true to Design Tomorrow with brands, products and experiences that live, breathe and move, ensures our strategic thinking is always robust, rigorous and resonant.

Deepening our insight and sharpening our foresight—we delve into the depths of our surroundings, understanding both the present reality and the potential it holds. Our vision extends beyond short-term perspectives, embracing the broader macro trends and influential forces shaping our environment.

We start with conducting research and gathering inspiration to deepen our insight and sharpen our foresight. We delve into the depths of our clients’ surroundings, understanding their present reality and the potential it holds.From interviews with the leadership to the front line, analysing macro-trends and conducting field research. Sometimes looking to history and across other industries to understand the context and see what’s coming down the line. 

For Spring Health, a mental health solution provider for employers, employees and insurers, we went deep to understand the founder, April, and her team’s own journey and struggles getting the mental health care they needed. Numerous interviews and workshops in tandem with our own research revealed Spring Health’s unique approach and commitment, forming their positioning in the EAP space. For April and her team, the ability to connect people at their specific level of need to careful and personalised care mattered most. Though this approach was precise and clinically based, it was delivered with genuine humanity. The leaf symbol encapsulates wellness and discovery, designing the leaf veins to read like pages of a book to speak to turning a new leaf in your mental health journey

Understanding the stakeholders—both internal and external—we transcend conventional communications-led views of people as audiences and see that boards, employees, customers, partners, suppliers, local communities, and beyond all have a stake in how businesses and brands make a difference.

Eppo, a B2B experimentation platform, targets multiple audiences within organisations, like data scientists, engineers, product managers, and marketers, each with their own needs and views on the world. To reach them effectively while bringing consistency to the brand, we knew we couldn’t have four different positionings, so we sought out to find what unites them and elevate that, creating an aspirational group. We found that each target was a leader in bringing change to their organisations, which led to creating our aspirational group: Transformational Leaders. By grounding our strategy in their audience’s connected, human needs, we were able to better understand and build Eppo’s positioning towards them.

Identifying the compelling truths that enable brands to change—these are core, unique, and most often hidden strengths that aren’t being utilised in the right way, it’s about giving brands permission to do things differently and with authenticity.

For Microsoft Advertising which is an AI-powered digital advertising platform we identified the essence of Microsoft Advertising which was ‘Transformation’. The insight being they were constantly transforming to become the best version of themselves, they are changing the advertising industry for the better and they empower growth. We created a symbol, which was an abstracted A for Advertising but evokes the feeling of Transformation and Amplification. The symbol inspired the graphic system so you can see everything has the same vibe and tone to it.

Defining a role rather than defending a position—we elevate the remit of a business and brand to more than just a provider of goods and services, shifting their mindsets to think differently about the role they play and the categories they operate in. This speaks to the broader value creation story – understanding that we’re all part of a larger ecosystem and defining the value your brand brings to the system.

We worked with Budibase, an open-source low-code application builder and defined Budibase’s role as Supercharging Productivity. Building from the concept and value proposition, Where work actually flows, we created a visual identity that reflected this using a visual language of workflow diagrams and what this system also does is references the building blocks of code that Budibase provides.

Going beyond words, we shape stories that are purpose-led, emotionally engaging, a manifesto to stand by, and a filter and guide for decision making. At the core of every story  lies a simple yet meaningful idea, encapsulating the essence of why we exist, what we offer, and how we enact change. 

Mighty Buildings is a 3D printing construction company working to address the global housing crisis through a sustainable and cutting edge approach to building including on site micro factories, eco-friendly materials, and 3D printed pieces. Telling their story was crucial to bringing their brand to life. Through a positioning focused on uniting beauty and efficiency, we were able to tell their story of building sustainable communities for the next generation to appeal to both home-owners and builders alike.

Driving action and delivering activation—we need more than big ideas, we deliver commitments and proof points. In Designing Tomorrow we go further into making, launching, and activating the strategies and creative solutions we come up with, resulting in more prototyping, more testing, and more measurement. 

For Exness, the world’s largest retail broker, we helped them evolve their brand into something more emotional and customer-centric. We activated the branding in many ways but one aspect I want to point out is the brand and product showing up in the same way to really deliver on the strategy. Thinking through the launch and the activation of a brand is super important, so it’s worth plotting proof points and experiences along a customer journey to guarantee people will be delighted by the branding efforts.

Six steps, a flow or order of events when it comes to our strategic thinking at Moving Brands. That’s not to say we apply a ‘One Size Fits All’ formula to every client challenge and sure, all of this great thinking and creating doesn’t come for free, but given the greenlight with no limitations these are the steps we would adopt and look to deliver against. But regardless of scope, these steps guide the questions we ask and inform the journey we go on with our clients to uncover the answers that will help them move forward, move higher, move better.

Like the sound of how we flow? Then give us a shout and let’s get moving!