Brand Strategy

A brand isn’t static. Its performance changes over time as consumer preferences shift, new channels appear and competition piles into the market. Beyond that, overall performance figures can obscure underlying conditions. For instance, a brand’s rise might be unsustainably fad-driven; a decline might be due to a failure to recognize pockets of opportunity.

So brands require ongoing care. To keep them vibrant, brand owners need an appropriate overall architecture. They also must make resource allocations, track brand performance against competitors, evaluate the strategy against results and periodically re-evaluate the desired market position. At the same time, each business decision has to stay true to the brand’s values, consumers and promises.

How we help

We help you position, develop and invest in your brands to differentiate and drive growth. And we do it by bringing an analytical perspective to brand strategy so clients can realize maximum value across all brands, products and channels — both physical and online ­— while recognizing the brand’s emotional elements. As part of that, we can:

  • Evaluate overall brand performance
  • Validate the profile of each brand’s key consumer segments
  • Understand the key factors driving consumer purchasing behaviors
  • Understand pricing power and permission to play across brands
  • Identify growth potential through new channels
  • Assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of individual brands

In addition, we support the development of new brands or refreshment of an existing brand by doing the following:

  • Establish how the key elements of each brand (product range, price points, positioning, channel availability, etc.) are differentiated in the minds of consumers and channel partners
  • Identify ways to protect each brand’s differentiation to support individual brand and overall portfolio growth
  • Determine the appropriate brand architecture, brand roles and rules to exploit a brand portfolio’s full potential
  • Define the appropriate and optimal role of each brand’s promotion and advertising messages across all channels including online
  • Simulate how changes to one brand affect other brands in a portfolio

Your benefits

  • A clearer perspective on which customers each brand (or portfolio of brands) is serving, and how those brands should be positioned
  • A better understanding of each brand’s points of difference
  • Stronger market share from more defensible positioning
  • A clear investment plan for the brand and associated financial benefits
  • Higher revenues and profitability from improved alignment with customers and channels

Examples of our work

To learn more about how we help our clients, please refer to these case examples:

  • L.E.K. worked with this mattress company to reduce channel conflict and brand dilution by identifying key differences among its 20-plus brands and sub-brands.
  • We identified unique positioning opportunities for this multibillion-dollar beverage firm’s hydration brands, helping maximize share and ensure appropriate coverage of consumer segments.
  • For this aftermarket parts and accessories business, L.E.K. helped streamline and clarify a 10-brand architecture to aid growth, resolve brand conflicts and support expansion into digital channels.
  • For this footwear and apparel brand, L.E.K. defined customer segments in nine countries, revealing opportunities that resulted in a modified brand strategy and validated several major company initiatives. Read more

Actionable insights borne out of deep, in-market experience in the world’s major industries.

Learn about how we can help with your Marketing & Sales needs.