The Brand Brief
If strategy is prep work for design, then the brand brief is one final act of refinement. It’s a portable representation of all a brand’s hopes and dreams. Sharp enough to act upon, ambiguous enough to account for future growth. For cultural brands, the brief also includes hooks to the “zeitgeist”.
A modern lifestyle brand is an ecosystem that distinguishes itself on the basis of taste, which is a function of community. Cultural brand strategy is about building a platform. Up until this point, the work has been in exploring brand identity in its most basic sense. Nailing down core concepts to create some semblance of a foundation. Wheeler’s final step here is the brand brief (book link).
From: How Brands Become Icons
Cultural branding aligns itself with the larger values and spirit of the time to influencer larger trends. It moves beyond mindshare to exist within a much more nuanced space (Holt 2004). Zeitgeist reflects shared beliefs, values and attitudes of an era. It can influence the way people behave and create and can have an afterlife through style. Through zeitgeist, we can identify period-specific cultural patterns as red threads for brand strategy.
A brand brief is a foundational document that clearly articulates what the brand is and why it exists. These considerations are tied to larger business goals. My argument for revitalizing cultural creativity is partially that brands of the future are niche, self-sustaining ecosystems rooted in specialized craftsmanship (full report here). It starts with alignment between brand identity and culture at large.
