In brand work three key components usually come up. The first two are brand strategy and brand hierarchy. It is not uncommon for these two to be confused with each other, or at least their meaning and interrelationship can be unclear – after all, the terms themselves are very similar.

The third key component is positioning. Positioning in an other context – for example in pricing – has a slightly different meaning. But here I focus on brand work.

1. Brand strategy

The company’s strategy describes the significance and role of the brand for company, and which things and features of the company or product / service get a prominent role in company’s actions. This is brand strategy.

Brand strategy is one component in putting company strategy into practice and into living life. The basis of the brand strategy is the information, experiences and decisions that the company itself has found to be relevant and current. Background for this may be experiences from the past or studies and assessments of the past and future and, of course, combinations of these.

What is essential, however, is that it is a question of own intentions, decisions and actions – brand strategy cannot emerge by itself from emptyness and does not begin to exist without conscious actions.

2. Brand hierarchy

The brand hierarchy is part of brand strategy and is equally a matter based on own concious decisions. Brand hierarchy describes the interrelationships between the things identified in the brand strategy. This is brand hierarchy.

Not all things that are important for brand work – and thus for a company’s strategy – can be of equal value at the same time. The weight of things can vary with the seasons, the range of products / services, the business environment or parts of it, changes in society, etc.

Brand strategy and brand hierarchy are thus clearly the result of own decisions and actions of a company or other brand owner. And it is possible to influence these things completely by own actions.

3. Brand positioning

Brand position firstly describes one’s own intention of the brand’s position in the industry, in competition and also in society at large – and especially in customers’ life. And herein lies what’s dangerous in misunderstanding positioning. How one’s own brand – be it a corporate brand, a product or service brand, a country brand or brand of a non-profit association – is positioned happens mainly regardless of what one’s own intentions, decisions and actions are. That is brand position.

Positioning as a verb, in turn, is brand work. And in reverse: brand work is positioning.

I describe positioning in more detail in another post. Read more about brand positioning here !

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Timo Keinänen Explorer, service designer, concept designer, art director, writer and designer.
”I belive that you should be yourself, as all other roles are already taken. If you have the opportunity to express an opinion, express your own.”

Thougths, posts and opinions represent myself only.