Brand strategy is a conspiracy theory

AI could never conceive that Avril Lavigne is a lizard person or that birds aren’t real. That takes a human brain capable of seeing (sometimes bonkers) human patterns. 

Brand strategy requires the same brain, the same level of convincing hypothesis for a brand to launch or relaunch, before there’s any concrete proof you can pull it off.

A brand strategy (at least at Willow & Blake) involves:

Competitor research. 

AI can totally help with this. But it can’t visit the shelf. It can’t see when everyone in the category is using a serif font, trying to own the same 3pm slump moment, or what sits at eye level versus bottom shelf. It won’t understand the nuance between brands using the word ‘glow’ versus ‘radiance’. It can’t do the very human thing of trawling Instagram, websites, TikTok, and Google to understand exactly what positioning they’re going for or what brand world they’re creating.

Audience personas. 

Again, AI can support this, but it can’t supply qualitative data. Which might look like interviews with customers or stakeholders with rich intel from years of experience, reading comments, Reddit threads, reviews, or asking the group chat. It’s one thing to pick a demographic to go after. It’s another thing entirely to understand psychographics and what makes someone pull out their credit card. Hint: it’s more emotional than you’d like to think. It’s about finding the addressable but currently under-addressed market. The niche no one else has niched to, yet.

Strategic recommendations.

This is the intellectual heart of the strategy. It’s ultimately about what your brand positioning should be, and how you achieve it by leveraging the right cues to signal to your target audience your brand exists for them. It must take into account both macro factors and microcosms, and how the zeitgeist is influencing decisions. We often like to call it having a handshake with culture, as this is what ensures the brand is not only commercially successful, but also culturally relevant. This is the conspiracy theory. Where we are seeing patterns, looking to data, looking out of category, relying on anecdotes, and drawing a red thread between what we learn.

Where the thinking comes from.

Reputable sources. Studies and reports, but only if they are recent and significant. Tracksuit data. Paid publications. News publications. Great thinkers and strategists across LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Substack. Reddit threads and TikTok trends. Anecdotal evidence and gut instinct. And then the hard part: synthesising it all. AI can only regurgitate what has already been. But brands only ever succeed or cut through by introducing a novel idea or aesthetic to the category, shelf, or screen. That’s where we come in. And we give it to you in the smallest word count possible.

What does a red thread look like?

Here are some example threads pinning something that’s happening in the zeitgeist to a strategic action for a brand.

Groceries have become a luxury signifier in a post-covid era of resource scarcity. A bodycare brand can borrow that aesthetic to justify a premium price point.

Fancy, colourful Portuguese tinned fish is having a moment. That could lead to a bright design for your tinned cat food: same format, but the price is justified by cues from the tinned fish craze.

The rise in searches for blue eyeshadow signals an openness to maximalism, and the pendulum swinging away from quiet luxury again. So a beauty brand might lean into maximalist colour and fun.

But don’t confuse that with the clean girl aesthetic, which is a hygiene reaction to the post-covid era. It dips and peaks, but it has held a consistent stronghold and could also be a viable positioning, pending product, competition, and audience.

Red threads lead to insights.

Claude will deal in facts. And don’t get me wrong, these are helpful facts. But they are not insights.

An insight is a revelatory truth. It should feel like “Oh yeah, that’s so true,” or “Huh, I never thought of it that way, but you’re right.” It isn’t a trend, a fact or a simple observation.

Bad insight: Wearing pyjamas is a form of self care, especially for busy mums.

Good insight: Putting on matching PJs after a shower at night is the only hour in the day mums feel put together.

Bad insight: Gen Z are seeking authenticity on social media.

Good insight: Gen Z have gotten so good at performing nonchalance, they want to permission to be earnest again

Bad insight: Millennial men are redefining masculinity.

Good insight: Millennial men experience the biggest difference between what family values they grew up with, and the expectations they live with today.

Bad insight: Bananas are high in potassium.

Good insight: Since potassium helps with muscle cramps, bananas make the best swimming snack.

This last one is likely what led to one of my favourite campaigns, the banana swim pass. 

And it takes a human je ne sais quoi to crack this type of thinking. I call it a conspiracy theory because it is a theory. We can’t give you proof that it will work, but we can give you a passionate pitch while swooping around a Figjam. Kind of like a bird. If only they were real.