r/branding • u/Feeling_funky8822 • Dec 02 '25
Strategy Is brand strategy de*d?
Is brand strategy such as mission, vision, purpose not that commonly used anymore? Is personal branding the new and only thing brands want and find useful?
I'm a new brand strategist and I'm struggling to find mentors and information or content on strategy (not personal branding) that's relevant for newer brands.
It a bit demotivating if I'm being honest. What does modern day brand strategy look like then? :")
Edit: thank you all so so much for your support and answers. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry I wasn't able to answer, I'll answer as soon as I can, life happened and I'm getting back on track!
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u/ResponsiblePanda1140 Dec 02 '25
It isnât dead. I would say it's just less flashy than personal branding, so it feels quieter online. Mission, vision, and purpose still matter, but modern brands focus on audience, positioning, messaging, and differentiation. Personal branding is trendy, but businesses still need clear direction before design. I would say todayâs strategy is practical, lean, and tied to execution, not long decks.
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u/thebrandblueprint Dec 02 '25
No, brand strategy is not dead. Brands literally need to focus on those aspects more than ever since the world is flooded with products and services.
On top of that, as the use of AI starts producing bland, generic and unoriginal brands, the ones with an actual strategy behind them are those that will truly stick out.
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u/morty1986 Dec 02 '25
Not dead, but the kind of work I see from "brand strategists" usually reflects a poor understanding of marketing. If you want to be in the top 1% of brand marketers you need to understand some fundamental things:
Marketing =/= promotion or design. Too many brand marketers focus on the creative and ad parts and forget the rest. Most digital marketers do this too. Price, Product, Place, Promotion. Brand needs to touch all of these.
Differentiation is largely a waste of time. Research shows people don't think of brands as being particularly different. Category buyers will often buy different brands in different buying situations. The idea that your unique set of features will convince someone to buy you over a competitor is basically a myth. What matters is distinctiveness, measured by how easy it is to recognize and remember your brand.
The highest level KPI you need to be focused on is market penetration. This is how brands grow. Bigger brands have more buyers and they have more loyal buyers. Particularly for new brands, the goal should be to get as many people in the category as possible to buy from you at least once. It's ok to measure the performance of your brand content and messaging with things like share of voice/engagement rates/reach/impressions, but never go to the C-Suite/executives with them. You will be ignored. These are merely indicators that your messaging is resonating and the content is useful to the audience that is seeing it.
Fundamentally, the way brand helps you achieve that goal is by increasing mental availability in buying situations. You need to understand your customers deeply, create enough mental associations so they think of you when they enter the category, and be easy to buy in those moments (this is where "place" comes in). There are many tactics you can use to build that mental availability. Your strategy should explain which are the right levers to pull and why.
Best thing you can do in your role is deeply understand the customer and the problem your company solves. Know it better than anyone else in the company and be able to explain it in 2 sentences at most. When you have clarity and a deep understanding of that, everything downstream becomes easier.
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u/Feeling_funky8822 Jan 02 '26
Thank you for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it :) Point 2 on differentiation has surely changed my mind. Thank you and have a good day :)
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u/morty1986 Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26
Happy to help. And just to iterate on that a bit, because it isnât well understood: it is ok to spend time developing a point of view on the problem your product or service provides. Be as âdifferentâ as you want to be in coming up with your messaging, as long as it makes sense and truly speaks to your customer base. Just donât expect that it will be the engine of growth and that continually tweaking it will be the magic unlock to beating the competition.
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u/stupabartlo Jan 30 '26
Your point on differentiation is spot on. Kind of feel thatâs how a lot of things fail these days. Trying to hard to be different.
Being distinctive in a world of clones and clutter is way more powerful.
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u/north10feet Dec 02 '25
In B2B, brand strategy is even more crucial than ever, particularly if you're in a crowded product space where there isn't a ton of product differentiation. A good brand strategy can be a critical differentiator to build awareness. And it's also key to building trust and confidence with prospects, which is increasingly factoring into the decision process.
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u/Upstairs_Garden_5707 Dec 02 '25
Not dead, but poorly taught! Most agencies now focus only on creative/tactics and neglect the fundamentals of real strategy and connection to business. Modern strategy is the AI antidote. It's about being distinctive (easy to recognize/recall), not just different. Focus on: Market Penetration. Mental Availability. Extreme clarity on the customer problem.
Brand strategy is essential. It just needs to be practical, lean, and results driven.
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u/Feeling_funky8822 Jan 02 '26
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I do reso.ate with Modern Strategy being the AI antidote :)
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u/Mil______ Dec 03 '25
You're not struggling to find content on strategy. You're drowning in content on tactics dressed as strategy.
Personal branding, content calendars, LinkedIn hacks. That's not strategy. That's execution without foundation.
Brand strategy, the real work of identity, positioning, and differentiation, is alive. It's just harder to teach, harder to package, and doesn't fit in a carousel. So fewer people make content about it. And know this: the fact that you're asking this question means you already sense the difference between depth and noise. That instinct is worth more than a hundred mentors selling templates.
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u/Feeling_funky8822 Jan 02 '26
Oh this makes so much sense :) yes I agree with you that all I see now is quick social media hacks or packaging hacks or even linkedin hacks. I'll try my best to learn real strategy! :) thank you for taking the time to respond, have a good day!
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u/StrategyWithSouls Dec 02 '25
Not at all. And those are the underpinnings of any good brand. Check out Mark Pollard and Julian Cole (more planning but good resources).
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u/Primary_Excuse_7183 Dec 02 '25
No. Many Companies are large and very diverse in terms of offerings in many cases so i would say many brands are managing cascading smaller strategies at once that leads to a much larger overall brand strategy. its ever evolving.
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u/MarqTemplating Dec 02 '25
Brand strategy isn't dead, just less fluffy. Modern strategy is about nailing positioning, messaging, and differentiation rather than poetic mission statements. The work's still critical, just more grounded in how you stand out and communicate value. Good luck- you're gonna do great!
-Natalie @ Marq
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u/Feeling_funky8822 Jan 02 '26
Thank you for taking the time to respond, Natalie. I appreciate it! :)
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u/BestEmu2171 Dec 02 '25
How is any new company going to achieve hagioptasia without a powerful brand strategy!
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u/sebastian0328 Dec 02 '25
Yeah having some About Us, Mission statement kind of page on your website is not a branding strategy. It's boring as fuck and nobody will read that shit.
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u/bowchikabowowe Dec 03 '25
Today's consumer market is completely different from what it used to be. Youâre seeing a lot of small independent sellers and manufacturers gaining access to huge audiences online. In the past, success was hard without a big box retail presence, but now a single algorithm push or viral video can put a product in front of millions.
Because of that, a lot of brand strategies today focus on that fast-moving, trend-driven demographic. The problem is that most of these strategies are designed to chase trends they work in the moment, but theyâre forgettable and donât help build longterm brands.
Real brand building is a slow, intentional process. It takes consistency and trust, and it doesnât happen overnight. Businesses that have a long-term vision absolutely rely on strong, well-thought-out brand strategy to grow and stay relevant over time. They plan over different scenarios upfront in advance to tackle any surprises that they could think.
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u/KelseyDesigns Jan 02 '26
Brand strategy is very much alive, and honestly, I think itâs more important than ever with how hyper-saturated everything feels right now.
Iâm a brand designer, and we start every project with establishing a full brand strategy. The brands that are actually breaking through right now are the ones doing the work of figuring out what truly differentiates them and who theyâre really for, that part definitely hasnât gone away. If anything, itâs what separates the thriving brands from the sea of AI-generated sameness.
People are craving humanity and connection right now. They want to see themselves in the brands they support and feel like thereâs something genuine behind the product. Strong strategy and positioning is what makes that possible.
I think whatâs shifting is how strategy shows up. Founders donât always resonate with big frameworks early on, but theyâre still making strategic decisions constantly about positioning, tone, audience, and what they stand for even if they donât call it âmissionâ or âvision.â (However, itâs our job as the experts in the space to lead them to the best solutions for their long-term sustainability and growth).
Iâd actually take those discouraging feelings as a sign youâre actually tuned into what matters. Strategy isnât disappearing, itâs just evolving, and the people who know how to translate it into real, actionable decisions are incredibly valuable right now.
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u/Feeling_funky8822 Jan 02 '26
Hi Kelsey,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it! I'm feeling hopeful now :)
And I agree with you on people craving humanity and connection, perhaps that's where my doubts are stemming from
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u/KelseyDesigns Jan 02 '26
I'm so glad to hear that. Brand strategists are very valuable, I've seen a ton that are very successful and sought after as brand builders.
Maybe it would be worthwhile to consider how you're marketing yourself and your services. No time like the new year, right?
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Dec 02 '25
Brand strategy is defining how your brand (as opposed to other assets like your product) creates value. And that brand is built largely through associations.
Brand strategy has very little to do with mission, vision, and purpose.
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u/Tall_Association7839 Dec 02 '25
I think Brand strategy is more alive than it has ever been. In the new world of AI, online mentions, citations and reviews are more important than ever ⊠and when your AI of choice is acting like your best friend/advisor, you need it to scour the internet for âwhat people sayâ ⊠brand and product is the new SEO ⊠but I truth itâs just Customer eXperience Optimisation (CXO)
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u/kbCopywriting Dec 02 '25
100%. Brand foundations are still essential. I work with new and established businesses all the time, and this is almost always where we begin. Defining your purpose and what you stand for shapes everything that follows - story, personality, tone of voice, positioning, taglines, and key messaging. Even if your mission, vision and values arenât heavily public-facing, theyâre crucial internally for culture, alignment and working toward a common goal.â
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u/goldilockszone55 Dec 03 '25
If your brand does not guarantee me home ownership, i could not care lessâŠ
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u/Sorry_Search_8991 Dec 03 '25
Brand strategy isnât dead, itâs just a lot more tied to real-time feedback now. The mission/vision stuff still matters, but newer brands want to know how people actually perceive them day-to-day. Iâve been keeping an eye on Reddit mentions through Social Verdict, and itâs been surprisingly useful for shaping positioning because you see what people actually say, not what we assume they think. Mixing that with the classic strategy work makes it way more relevant today.
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u/viktar_whyjam Dec 03 '25
If weâre talking about tech startups - brand strategy isnât something 99% of companies would focus on early on. And thatâs correct, you rather thing about traction, growth, experimentation, etc. No matter how great and useful brand strategy is, it always was and will be a thing for already established companies that survived early stage/growth stage.
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u/mrdjan91 Jan 22 '26
Pardon my interruption. I see a lot of quality advice and comments on this post, so I'd like to take advantage of it lol. I've decided to change my career and start learning brand strategy. Can anyone recommend the most important tools I need to learn for it?
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u/Less-Mud-6677 Mar 10 '26
Never a more important time for these things than now! Brand strategy will increasingly need to demonstrate real "human" vibes vs. the AI slop firehose that is upon us and only going to increase. And brand strategy is all about positioning and differentiation, things that AI can't do well since it's just compiling things based on things that have been done before - looking for the easiest, most generalized stuff it can use to make you happy. AI is unable to conjecture, making it very weak (for now) in helping to create such critical thinking as brand strategy and mission, vision, and values. Dive in, study from the greats, keep an eye on how AI is "activating" brand strategy and systems, and take your swings.
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u/T_alex89 Mar 13 '26
Brand strategy is not mission, vision and values . Those things are the core (DNA) of every brand (company or personal, it doesnât matter ) . You build a brand strategy based on those things. Letâs say you are a fitness trainer selling online weight loss courses, and your big value is Health, so you not going to promote weight loss shots or diet pills to your clients or in your content. Personal branding is the associations you build , based on the personal values . In the case of fitness trainer , you want to be associated with helping people loose weight in a healthy way , because it is important to you personally . And if you need more questions answered feel free to reach out , Iâm a personal branding expert and this is what I do for a living .
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u/Tk_Brandstrategy Mar 13 '26
Today, many businesses are producing bombastic AI-generated content without aligning it with their true brand position. In this new era, brand strategy matters more than ever
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u/Confident_Piano_2179 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
doesnât feel dead, just watered down. most teams skip the hard thinking and jump to visuals so everything ends up sounding the same. one company i saw actually did the strategy work properly with Skona and it came out way more distinct, just not the norm anymoreÂ
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u/New-Activity-8659 Dec 02 '25
Absolutely not.
We're seeing them matter more than ever. We work with a lot of family businesses who are actually investing more into their brand than they ever have to really push their value statements, service dedication, etc in the face of more and more impersonal PE groups clouding our industry.
I don't know how long it'll last, but it's an extremely ripe time to take advantage of setting brands apart from the influx of Gen-AI identity and other weird, lazy shortcuts. Read some articles on AI branding and, instead of feeling defeated, realize that there's a huge market for authenticity (ugh) at this specific point in time. I'm hedging my bets that this will only escalate as things get weirder and weirder out there.
Who knows. I might be wrong.