What comes first the brand strategy or the egg? The question is particularly germane when brand planning for a service company whose deliverables are people, paper, process and transaction. Does the strategy inform the service or the service inform the strategy? Almost always the answer is the latter.
When you work on this kind branding initiative the care-abouts and good-ats are numerous and varied – way more so than with a packaged good. One of the areas I like to delve into with service companies is “tradition.” Not something you can do a deep dive on with start-ups by the way. Borrowed from my early days in cultural anthropology, “custom and tradition” are fertile areas of study and important brand contributors. When there are none, things get tricky but you must push forward. Even into aspiration land. Projection techniques can provide unrealistic results but the learning is important.
I don’t currently have a “tradition” question in my discovery rigor, though there is one in the neighborhood. Definitely time to add tradition to the mix.
Peace…in Syria.
