What does a brand strategist do?
A brand strategist works out the thinking a brand runs on. Positioning: the space it owns in the market and in the customer's head. Audience: who it is really for, and who it is not. Purpose, values, personality, voice. The strategist turns research, interviews and instinct into a short document everyone can agree on, then defends it when the work starts to drift.
The output is usually a brand platform or a strategy deck, but the real output is a decision. A strategist who hands over forty pages and no point of view has done the research and skipped the job. The good ones can say what the brand is in one sentence and explain why the second-best option was wrong.
Why it matters
Why a brand strategist matters
Without strategy, creative is a matter of taste, and taste is argued about in every meeting. With it, the creative director has a brief, the designer has a reason behind each choice and the client has a way to judge the work that is not "I like it". Strategy is also what survives staff changes. Campaigns come and go; a positioning that was properly built can hold a brand steady for a decade, through new agencies, new leadership and new products.
In practice
How a brand strategist works in practice
- 01
The strategist starts by listening. Stakeholder interviews, customer conversations, a hard look at the competition and at what the brand has said about itself over the years. From that they draft a positioning and a set of principles, pressure-test it against the business plan and the audience, and present it as a story rather than a spreadsheet. The best decks make the client feel seen before they feel sold to.
- 02
Once the platform is agreed, the strategist writes the creative brief and stays close to the work. They are in the room when the identity is presented, they read the script before the shoot and they check that the launch film says what the strategy promised. Strategy that leaves the building when the deck is approved is a souvenir, not a tool.
At RIOT
Brand strategists at RIOT
When the Washington Commanders took their new name in 2022, the thinking behind the identity and the rebrand film that announced it came from the same room, which is why the film sounds like the brand rather than an advert for it. RIOT was founded by a creative director who is still in the pitch, on set and in the edit, and the strategy work sits in the same meetings he does.
Watch out
What people get wrong about brand strategists
Confusing a brand strategist with a market researcher. Research is an input; the strategist's job is the judgment at the end of it. The other mistake is treating the strategy as finished when the deck is approved. If the positioning is not visible in the next piece of work, nobody is using it, and the strategist should be the first to say so.
