Strategic Thinking

BELOVED
BRANDS HOW TO THINK STRATEGICALLY
INC.

Graham Robertson | President of Beloved Brands Inc.

How to Think Strategically
If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Yogi Bera

After 20 years of managing marketing teams, I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of marketers–some
classically trained CPG and some with just good instincts. While 100% of them would proclaim of
themselves “I’m a strategic thinker”, in reality only about 15-20% were actually strategic. Yet, even some of
the best implementers I know still want to be strategic. I don’t get it. Why? I want someone to just finally say
“I’m a really good tactical thinker and not really that good at strategy”. I have finally started to ask some of
my friends who are great implementers: ”Why do you want to be strategic?” I finally got an answer that
made sense. “Strategic people get paid more”.

To me, the difference between a strategic thinker and a non-strategic thinker is whether you see questions
first or answers first. Strategic Thinkers see “what if” questions before they see solutions. They map out a
range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play out. They reflect and plan
before they act. They are thinkers and planning who can see connections. Non-Strategic Thinkers see
answers before questions. They get to answers quickly, and will get frustrated in the delays of thinking. They
think doing something is better than doing nothing at all. They opt for action over thinking. They are
impulsive and doers who see tasks. They are frustrated by strategic thinkers. Aren’t we all.

But to be a great marketer, you must be a bit of a chameleon. While pure strategy people make great
consultants, I wouldn’t want them running my brand. They’d keep analyzing things to death, without ever
taking action. And while tactical people get stuff done, it might not be the stuff we need done. I want
someone running my brand who is both strategic and non-strategic, almost equally so. You must be able to
talk with both types, at one minute debating investment choices and then be at a voice recording deciding on
option A or B. You need to make tough choices but you also have to inspire all those non-strategic thinkers to
be great on your brand instead of being great on someone else’s brand.

So let’s see if there is a model that can help people be better at strategy. A simple way is to break it down
into the 4 elements of a good strategy: there is usually a good Focus of resources on what has the biggest
potential return, an Early Win that allows you to confidently keep going, a Leverage point you can twist and
turn and finally a Gateway to something even bigger. Here’s how the 4 stages of thinking works:

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1. FOCUS all your energy to a particular strategic point or purpose. Match up your brand assets to
pressure points you can break through, maximizing your limited resources—either financial resources or
effort. Make tough choices and opt be loved by the few rather than tolerated by the many.
2. You want that EARLY WIN, to kick start of some momentum. Early Wins are about slicing off parts of the
business or population where you can build further. Without the early win, you’ll likely seek out some
new strategy even a sub-optimal one. Or someone in management will say “it’s not working”. You
don’t want either of those–so the early win helps keep people moving towards the big win.
3. LEVERAGE everything to gain positional advantage or power that helps exert even greater pressure and
gains the tipping point of the business that helps lead to something bigger. This is where strategy
provides that return–you get more than the effort you’re doing from it.
4. Seeing beyond the early win, there has to be a GATEWAY point, which is the entrance or a means of
access to something even bigger. It could be getting to the masses, changing opinions or behaviours.
Return on Investment or Effort.

Lots of explanations on strategy use war analogies, so let’s look at D-Day and see how it matches up. While
Germany was fighting a war on two fronts (Russia and Britain),
the Allied Forces planned D-Day for 2 years and joined in full
force to focus all their attention on one beach, on one day.
The surprise attack gave them an early win, and momentum
which they could then leverage into a bigger victory then just
one beach. Getting on mainland Europe gave the allied forces
the gateway they needed to steamroll through on a town by
town basis and defeat the Germans. The allied forces had
been on the defensive for years, but landing on D-Day gave
them one victory and the tipping point to winning the war. For those who struggle with focus, imagine that if
the Allied Forces decided to place one soldier every 15 feet from Denmark all the way around Europe to
Greece. Would it have been successful? Not a chance.

While war analogies put some heightened sense of intelligence into marketing, let’s look at an example
using Avril Lavigne and see if it still works. If it does, then maybe it’s still a good model. In 2005, Avril’s
career was flat, a normal path for young musicians. To kick off her album, she did a series of free mall
concerts—and was criticized as desperate. She was desperate and no one really understood the logic. But
think about it: malls are exactly where her target (11-17 female) hangs out, allowing her to focus all her


energy on her core target. She attracted 5k screaming 13 year olds per mall—creating an early win among her
most loyal of fans: those who loved and adored her. She was able
to leverage the good will and energy to get these loyal fans to go buy
her album in the mall record stores which helped her album debut at
#1 on the charts. And everyone knows the charts are the gateway to
the bigger mass audience–more radio play, more iTunes downloads
and more talk value. The comeback complete. Madonna has done the
same strategy, except she seeded her songs into dance clubs for the
last 20 years.

However, even though all these marketers are saying they are strategic, strategy actually runs counter
intuitive to many marketers. You mean by focusing on something so small, I can get something big. That
makes no sense. I better keep trying to do everything to everyone. But that’s exactly how a fulcrum works to
give you leverage. Next time you’re taking off your tire on your car, try getting 6 really strong guys to lift your
car or just get a tiny little car jack. This is the same model for brand strategy. Focus on your strengths, focus
on those consumers who will most love you and focus on the one potential action point you can actually get
them to do.

Many marketers always struggle with the idea of focus and always try to do it all. And for everyone. They
worry they’ll pick a potential target too tight and alienate others, focus on one message and forget to tell all
they know and miss a crucial fact or focus too tight on one part of the business and forget the others. I saw a
brief describe their target was “18-65, current customers, potential customers and employees”. I said “all
you’ve eliminated is prisoners and tourists.” I get it that it can feel scary to focus. But it should feel even
scarier not focusing, just in case you’re wrong. You always operate with limited resources no matter how big
of a brand: financial, people, partnering, time. Trying to do everything spreads your limited resources and
your message so that everything you do is “ok” and nothing is “great”. In a crowded and fast economy, “ok”
never breaks through so you’ll never get the early win to gain that tipping point that opens up the gateway.
When you focus, three things happen: 1) you actually become very good at what you do 2) people perceive
you to be very good at what you do since that is the only thing you do 3) you can defend the positioning
territory

Many times, Marketers fall in love with the best ideas—not always the best strategies. This is where they
tactical and they end up chasing down a path with a hollow gateway. It’s crucial you always start with the best
strategies and then find the best ideas that fit with those strategies, not the other way around. What you need


to do is try to map out all the potential wins, try to understand what’s behind that win, and if there is
something bigger then go for it, but if there isn’t, then you should reject this path. There has to be a large
gateway behind those cool ideas, so you love what the idea does more so than just loving the idea.

How it matches up to Beloved Brands is where you can narrow down to the action point of where you want to
move the consumer. Assess honestly where you stand on the Brand Love Curve–indifferent, like it, love it or
brand for life. Focus all your energy on moving your brand along the curve. You can leverage the point on the
Love Curve to help you narrow
down your focus–it can even help
you pick the strategies you should
use for each stage. See below for
how it can help you pick a
strategy.

If you are at the Indifferent Stage,
you should try to move to the Like
It stage by getting consumers to
be aware of you and become
more familiar which means
a focus on the head to establish
your brand in the mind, whether
it is strategic options such as
offering a mind share, a mind shift
or some type of new news. As you move to the Like It stage, you should focus on the feet and push
consumers to take action by driving acquisition or penetration, pushing for consolidation and cross sell. You
got to believe you have the right offering that will help consumers once they use you. And to reach for
the Love It stage, try strategies that focus on the heart, to deepen the relationship, offer new reasons to love
or even maintain and re-enforce the love they have for the brand.

With a focus on just one stage of the Love Curve, you can start to see movement down the curve which will be
an early win, usually with a sales lift. From there you’ll begin toleverage the tighter connection with the
consumer that can lead to a gateway of bigger wins such as increased sales, higher share and in the end more
profitability.


About Beloved Brands Inc.

The purpose of Beloved Brands Inc. is to help brands to realize their full potential value. Most marketers will
tell you that branding is about finding a unique positioning. That is important. But I think positioning is
a source of power and a means to drive growth and make money. I will help your brand become a more
beloved brand and in turn a more powerful and more profitable brand.

BELOVED = POWER = GROWTH = PROFIT

Everything starts and ends with the consumer in mind.
 You have to match your strengths to what your consumer is looking for, to develop a competitive
advantage that you can satisfy better than anyone else.
 In the consumer’s mind, brands sit on a Love Curve, with brands going from Indifferent to Like It to Love
It and finally becoming a Beloved Brand for Life. At the Love It stage, demand becomes desire, needs
become cravings, thinking is replaced with feelings. Consumers become outspoken fans.
 You have to intimately know your consumer and build a relationship with them. It’s that relationship at
that Love It stage that becomes a source of power, which can be leveraged to gain share, drive sales,
increase price or extend usage, all of which helps to drive growth and profits for their brand. This helps
increase the overall value of the brand.
 Execution matters as much as strategy. There’s a certain magic in the way a brand strategies can be
executed to connect with the consumer. The more you love your work, the more they’ll love your brand.

My biggest point of difference is the sense of reality I will bring to the table. Unlike other consultants, I am a
former operator, just like you. And I know that speed, simplicity and action matters to you. I won’t ever put
together a deck that costs you a fortune and just sits there. Instead, I will use workshops to ensure alignment
and speed moving towards an action plan that will help drive on-the-spot accountability amongst your
team. I’m a creative yet pragmatic Marketer who has always been focused squarely on the results. I’ve
walked a mile in your shoes. In this tough economy, I offer a price that’s reasonable because while you’ll get
the highest of quality in thinking, I don’t have the overhead of a big consulting firm.

The more loved the brand, the more valuable the brand


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