Brand Consulting
When a brand needs a direction
Many businesses come to FreshBrand with a specific request, but what the brand really needs usually lies deeper than that request.
Brand consulting is the stage where FreshBrand researches, observes and talks with the business to name the problem correctly, then recommends where to begin: strategy, identity or one specific touchpoint. FreshBrand writes that recommendation up as a roadmap that makes clear what to do first and what does not need doing yet.
Perspective
A request for a new logo can be a sign of a dated positioning; a company profile that fails to convince can show that the business’s capabilities have not been told well. If we only solve what is visible, the business may end up with a new piece of design while the real problem is still there.
A design request only tells us what the business wants to do; it does not tell us how the market understands the business. That is why FreshBrand’s consulting starts from the gap between what the business is and what the market sees. To see that gap, FreshBrand studies the market and competitors, observes the touchpoints and listens to the head of the company, then names the bottleneck in a sentence clear enough for the whole business to understand.
For FreshBrand, good consulting does not begin with an answer but with asking the right question again.
When to start here
Businesses usually turn to consulting when they feel their brand is stuck somewhere without being sure where the problem lies.
When the first question is not the right one
The Oreli project began with the question of how a new clinic could differ from the existing ones. After looking at the Dak Lak market, FreshBrand reframed the question: how to create a brand that takes on a role the market had never had. That new question changed the whole direction that followed.
When the problem seems to be the logo
By 2018, tiNiWorld had expanded into tiNiStore, tiNiToy and tiNiTV, and each line had its own look. In conversations with the leadership, FreshBrand reframed the issue: this was no longer about making the logo prettier, because the ecosystem was growing faster than its brand structure. The first job was to redefine the relationship between the parent brand and its lines.
tiNi, 2018
When an advantage runs too deep for the market to see
CAMIMEX had built an entire system for producing organic shrimp, from seed stock, farming areas and mangrove forest to processing. The diagnosis showed that an advantage this deep will not turn into a reason to choose the brand until it is distilled into an identity the market recognizes.
When perception needs measuring before a decision
At Phan Bon Ha Lan, measuring brand perception showed that the brand was still seen as reputable in the industry, but managing the brand and the products as one had blurred the core brand. That finding opened the way to reorganizing the brand architecture.
How FreshBrand works
FreshBrand’s consulting follows the sequence of a diagnosis: understand the context, name what has been seen, find the bottleneck, and only then propose a roadmap.
Where is the brand now?
We start with the business itself: the journey so far, the ambition ahead, what its head wants the brand to become, and the documents and touchpoints already in place.
What has FreshBrand seen?
From that context, research looks for answers to the questions that will guide every decision that follows.
MarketWhat criteria are customers choosing by, and where do competitors stand?
PerceptionWhat do customers remember and think when they hear the company’s name?
StrengthsWhat is the business good at that competitors find hard to copy?
TouchpointsWhere is the brand saying different things in different places?
Where is the real bottleneck?
What we observe is distilled into an insight, the key understanding drawn from research, and a diagnosis that names the bottleneck, such as “Qui Phuc is growing faster than the way the market sees it.”
How does FreshBrand see the problem?
From the diagnosis, FreshBrand offers a point of view: what to keep, what to renew, and why. This is when the business and FreshBrand agree on the problem before discussing solutions.
Where should we begin?
The proposed roadmap puts the work in order of priority so the business invests in the right place.
StrategyWhen the bottleneck is in positioning, architecture or the brand platform
IdentityWhen the strategy is clear but the brand is still not recognized for what it is
ExpressionWhen only a few touchpoints need to be redone
What the business keeps
The consulting project comes to a close, but the documents it leaves behind help the business keep making decisions without going back to the first question.
- A discovery report on the market, competitors and how the brand is perceived.
- The insight and diagnosis, naming the bottleneck in language the whole business understands.
- FreshBrand’s point of view on what to keep and what to renew.
- A proposed roadmap: what to do first, what to do later, and what does not need doing yet.
Research & insight
Research aims to find what matters enough to change the business’s decisions, so each project uses only the methods that fit the question to be answered.
- Desk research: Industry documents, market data and how competitors position themselves.
- Field observation: Factories, points of sale, dealers and the places where customers meet the brand.
- Conversation: Sessions with the head of the company and the team to understand ambitions and what has gone unsaid.
- Perception measurement: Surveys on how customers see the brand compared with competitors, when data is needed to decide.
Let's talk
Is your business facing a similar question? Send a request to talk with FreshBrand, or download the portfolio to see more of our work.
In practice
Qui PhucIdentity renewal, 2012
When a business has moved ahead of its own image
Before 2012, Qui Phuc already had a large-scale factory, an ever wider range of stainless steel furniture and plastic cabinets, a distribution network across the country and its first export orders. Yet the market still saw Qui Phuc as a manufacturer with a lot of goods.
“Qui Phuc is growing faster than the way the market sees it.”
The diagnosis was therefore to let the brand’s image catch up with the scale the company already had inside, since the evidence of its growth was already there. The project’s point of view was found in the head of the company’s own wish: every step Qui Phuc takes should leave a mark on the market, like a lion’s footprint.
From that diagnosis, the design question became how to turn the idea of a company that keeps moving forward into a symbol the market recognizes; the answer was a lion stepping its right paw forward, together with the tagline “Moving forward, building life.”
The question behind it
Consulting shows where to begin, and the next step is usually one of the directions below.
FreshBrand capabilities
Strategy
When a brand needs a direction
- Brand Consulting
- Brand Strategy & Positioning
- Rebranding
- Brand Architecture
- Brand Platform
- Brand Naming
Identity
When a brand needs to be recognized
Expression
When meaning needs to take shape
Experience
When a brand needs to be felt
Communication
When a brand needs to be understood
Start with FreshBrand
Send us the problem, get a point of view.
You can send a request today, or download the portfolio to share with your leadership before we talk.