Brand Strategy Must Involve Some Level of Risk

For example, when the budget allows, a brand targeting young consumers with less seasonality can experiment at different stages: focusing on anime in the first quarter, celebrity culture in the second, and e-sports in the third. With the fragmentation of media, it’s impossible to use a single marketing model to cover everything. If the budget isn’t too tight and the seasonal influence isn’t strong, trying out different approaches is essential. After all, we’re not just creating a case study to win awards, but aiming to establish a brand strategy that resonates with consumers, builds trust, and drives purchasing behavior.

Moreover, building brand affinity isn’t just the marketing department’s responsibility. It extends to logistics, customer service—any touchpoint with the consumer is part of marketing and can influence consumer behavior and goodwill. A good product that does a little extra can win over customers. Take, for instance, during the pandemic, a food delivery service called He Fu Lao Mian. Their noodles were served in a box with a lock, and once opened, it couldn’t be resealed, giving an extra sense of security, which was especially important during the pandemic. After the pandemic, the positive sentiment remains because the product itself was good (of course, the food has to be tasty—no box can compensate for bad food). Both the product and the emotional comfort were satisfied, making consumers more likely to purchase again. Interestingly, this innovative packaging wasn’t necessarily developed by the marketing department, but likely by the packaging team. Similarly, many small businesses introduced “safety cards,” which might have been created by a front-desk worker. This shows that the concept of marketing is becoming broader.

This expansion in the concept of marketing offers valuable insights for the collaboration between advertising agencies and clients. Sometimes, the most effective approach is for the advertising agency to visit the factory and observe how the product is made. For example, during its peak season, Cornetto often takes agency teams out into the field to visit small stores, inspect displays, and engage with the sales process. By observing firsthand, agencies can better understand the entire consumer journey—not just from a communication standpoint, but from an operational perspective, helping to bring creative ideas to life. This is a challenge for ad agencies. In the past, a common practice was for clients to take agency teams on test drives when developing car advertisements, offering a tactile experience that is crucial for imagining a brand experience.

For agencies to truly grasp a client’s business, there are two important aspects: first, whether the agency is actively trying to understand the business, and second, whether the client provides opportunities for the agency to gain this understanding. Sometimes, even the best creative ideas can fail if they don’t align with a particular part of the brand’s ecosystem.

In this context, agencies must continuously evolve. We’re seeing more situations where advertising agencies and consulting firms are pitching together. Why? Because marketing is no longer just about communication. Today’s marketing service providers are expected to dive deeper, get closer, and understand the client’s business and commercial logic, helping brands elevate their marketing strategies to a new level. The goal is to truly become the brand’s partner.

With today’s increased transparency, there is nowhere to hide. For consumers, what a brand does (or doesn’t do) matters more than ever before. In a 24/7 media environment, brands can no longer simply claim to be “green,” offer quality products, or provide excellent customer service and expect to get away with it. Actions must match words, and any discrepancies will quickly be exposed (and spread like wildfire on social media). Brands are no longer passive entities that exist between the company and the customer. The company is the brand—and authenticity and consistency are key to maintaining relevance and significance in the market.

In this environment, authenticity becomes the new differentiator. Overemphasizing brand differentiation without considering authenticity can lead companies astray. The only way to maintain a consistent brand experience across all consumer touchpoints is by delivering genuine, relevant customer experiences—built with the help of all employees.

For example, clearly defining the brand’s true purpose can create great opportunities for engaging and empowering employees. This approach offers many benefits, such as demonstrating leadership commitment to the brand’s role in building the business, creating a culture of success through employees who understand the brand’s impact, and encouraging cross-departmental contributions to brand management. This improves both efficiency and effectiveness.

Authenticity doesn’t need to be something a brand tries to achieve—it often already exists but needs to be rediscovered. In some cases, positioning projects reveal that the company has accumulated layers of pretense over the years. The challenge then becomes peeling back those layers to rediscover the core values that made the brand meaningful in the first place, while reigniting passion for heritage, tradition, or creativity.

However, authenticity doesn’t always have to be rooted in the past. Take, for instance, the relatively new Detroit-based brand Shinola, which proudly declares on its website, “The great tradition of watchmaking in Detroit is just beginning.” By offering products that align perfectly with the brand’s promise (without being weighed down by history) and cleverly leveraging its Detroit roots, Shinola proves that a brand can be authentic without being “stuck in the past.”