This document discusses brand strategy and treating brand as an operating system. It argues that brands should be defined by their purpose, beliefs, and how they make decisions, rather than just communications campaigns. Effective brand strategy decouples macro brand strategy from immediate creative deliverables. It involves embracing truths about a brand through investigating love, pain, and tensions, and articulating the brand story and purpose. The brand strategist then works to infuse the organization with the brand thinking through coaching and ensuring the brand guides all decisions. When done right, the brand becomes the operating system that drives the whole company.

1. &
GETTING RADICAL
WITH BRAND
March 2017
WOLF WILHELMINE

2. OH HEY
It’s great to be here. Thank you for having me.
I. THE PREAMBLE
II. BRAND AS OPERATING SYSTEM
III. ARTICULATING BRAND
IV. INFUSING BRAND
V. DOING BRAND
2

3. THE PREAMBLE

4. ONCE UPON A TIME
IN A LAND NOT SO FAR AWAY...
After success at FCB New York, Fallon London and
BBH New York, I dropped out and took off. I didn’t
know if I was going to come back.
I spent two years traveling around America in a
truck and freelancing for gas money.
I had a lot of time to think...

5. THIS IS MY TRUCK IN WYOMING ON EPIPHANY DAY
5

6. 6
Despite working in a “creative industry”,
I HADN’T FELT CREATIVE IN YEARS.
(In fact, I was exhausted)

7. 7
I love brand strategy and I believe that
BRANDS HAVE TREMENDOUS CAPACITY
TO MAKE CHANGE IN THE WORLD
a capacity that the advertising industry was not
tapping into.

8. 8
I WAS TIRED OF BEING TIRED

9. 9
I FELT LIMITED BY
LIMITATIONS ON BRAND THINKING

10. 10
I STARTED RESEARCHING & THINKING
RESEARCH
What are the conditions that
creativity needs to thrive?
THINKING
What is truly powerful brand strategy
and how do you do it?

11. AND ULTIMATELY, THIS LED TO WOLF & WILHELMINE
11

12. AND ULTIMATELY, THIS LED TO WOLF & WILHELMINE
12
AN ENVIRONMENT BUILT
FOR REAL (NOT PING-PONG
TABLE) CREATIVITY TO THRIVE
7/Saturday Rule
Black-out vacations
Non-traditional talent approach
Oxygen philosophy

13. AND ULTIMATELY, THIS LED TO WOLF & WILHELMINE
13
A RELENTLESS FOCUS ON
PROGRESSIVE & PREMIUM
BRAND STRATEGY
No AOR
No strategy solely to make creative
High emphasis on training
AN ENVIRONMENT BUILT
FOR REAL (NOT PING-PONG
TABLE) CREATIVITY TO THRIVE
7/Saturday Rule
Black-out vacations
Non-traditional talent approach
Oxygen philosophy

14. 14
W&W IS A PREMIUM
BRAND STRATEGY SHOP
that helps companies make
positive shifts in the world.

15. 15
We consistently operate from our brand purpose:
DO GREAT WORK, LIVE GREAT LIVES

16. 16
And like every great brand,
W&W has an inherent tension:
FIERCE OUTPUT and HUMAN ETHOS

17. BRAND AS OPERATING SYSTEM

18. 18
BACK IN THE DAY...
Businesses were spiritually and structurally silo’ed.
Brand sat “over there” - away from the operations
and even away from the product.
As a result, brand strategy work got applied
to what the brand was in that era:
the communications campaign.

19. 19
THAT WAS CUTE,
BUT THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
Transparency has exploded, people want to
know what a company is up to and know that it
is holistically operating from a consistent and
positive ethos.
+
Everything has sped up. Brands are in a
constant state of interaction.

20. 20
Your brand is not your
communications campaign.
YOUR BRAND IS WHO YOU ARE AND
HOW YOU MAKE DECISIONS

21. 21
COMPANIES THAT THRIVE TODAY
(AND WILL THRIVE TOMORROW)
TREAT BRAND AS AN
OPERATING SYSTEM

22. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TREAT BRAND AS AN OPERATING SYSTEM?
22
It means understanding that a brand at its most powerful is an articulation of...
1) Why the company exists
2) What the company believes
3) How the company makes decisions
… and then driving all company behavior from these three things.

23. 23 WOLF & WILHELMINE
A UNIFYING PURPOSE IS AS THE HEART OF THE BRAND OPERATING SYSTEM
The narrative that explains why the world needs your brand.
It provides the context for your brand’s existence building from
culture, people, brand/product DNA and competition.
The single lighthouse statement around which your entire
organization orients. It articulates your relationship to the world.
Your toolbox for activation that will inform everything from
look and feel, to product innovation, to investments and
organizational design. These tools should be used by all who work
on and with the brand.

24. 24
HAVING A BRAND AS OS DRIVES BETTER, MORE COHESIVE COMPANIES

25. 25
HAVING A BRAND AS OS DRIVES BETTER, MORE COHESIVE COMPANIES

26. 26
HAVING A BRAND AS OS DRIVES BETTER, MORE COHESIVE COMPANIES

27. 27
HAVING A BRAND AS OS DRIVES BETTER, MORE COHESIVE COMPANIES

28. 28
HAVING A BRAND AS OS DRIVES BETTER, MORE COHESIVE COMPANIES

29. 29
A question we need to ask ourselves
as an industry…
ARE WE SERIOUS ABOUT
BEING REAL BRAND PARTNERS
TO OUR CLIENTS?

30. 30
If we’re serious about being experts in brand,
we need to embrace an evolution of how we
think about brand development:
ADVOCATE FOR PURE BRAND
STRATEGY THAT LIVES AT THE
MACRO COMPANY LEVEL
Which practically means...

31. 31
The way forward:
DECOUPLE MACRO BRAND
STRATEGY FROM IMMEDIATE
CREATIVE DELIVERABLES

32. BRAND STRATEGY and CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
32
BRAND STRATEGY
Lives at the macro level of a
company, built to guide it over
relatively longer periods of time.
BRAND STRATEGIST
Thinkers that articulate the core
brand operating system at a
company level.
CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Lives at the level of specific
audience engagements against
specific media/spaces.
CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST
Guide the brand in the now,
using brand foundations,
obsessing over how they apply in
the immediate need.

33. BRAND STRATEGY and CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
33
BRAND STRATEGY
Lives at the macro level of a
company, built to guide it over
relatively longer periods of time.
BRAND STRATEGIST
Thinkers that articulate the core
brand operating system at a
company level.
They operate the most
powerfully when engaged in
execution-agnostic assignments.
CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Lives at the level of specific
audience engagements against
specific media/spaces.
CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST
Guide the brand in the now,
using brand foundations,
obsessing over how they apply in
the immediate need.

34. WHY IS AGNOSTIC SO IMPORTANT?
34
In other words, why can’t this just come out of an advertising process and company?
Advertising companies are largely brought in to do advertising.
Advertising companies are largely filled with advertising talent that thinks in advertising.
Advertising companies start with advertising as the solution.
(As they should, it’s their job)
When it comes to brand, we are living in a post-advertising world.
Advertising is just one part of a brand (as is any other kind of engagement execution).
For companies to operate most powerfully, brand thinkers should start further upstream,
untethered from any kind of execution.

35. THE UNTETHERING OF BRAND STRATEGY FROM EXECUTION IS MAGICAL
35
Brand strategy is too powerful to only be tied to specific creative output.
Brand strategists, in their investigations, often think at the cultural level.
We are often rabidly curious about how a company functions.
We get in deep with audiences and people.
We are conditioned to live in a more macro space.
Companies need what we offer.
Companies need narrative.
Companies need purpose.
Companies need beliefs.
This is what brand strategists do.
Give companies relevant, provocative and positive versions of these and companies can be
better, operate better and make real impact in the world.

36. WE HAVE TO GET RADICAL IN
ARTICULATING THE BRANDS

37. BE BRAVE WITH LOVE
37
In every investigation, hunt love.
You might find love in how the core user feels about your product… or your competition’s.
You might find love in the founder’s ambition for the world.
You might find love in an interaction at retail.
You might find love in the long-lost DNA of a legacy brand.
You might find love in your audience’s hope for the category.
There is love in every investigation.
Find it.

38. BE BRAVE WITH PAIN
38
The pain is real. Honor it.
There might be pain in the way your audience feels about the world today.
There might be pain in the way your audience is treated by other brands.
There might be pain in how your client is interacting with the world.
There might be pain in the category, how it’s not serving people.
Pain is important.
(It can be difficult or tricky to acknowledge sometimes.)
Great brands embrace pain (and aim to truly fix it).

39. MOST OF ALL, BE BRAVE WITH TRUTH
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It’s pretty simple.
The days of brand as mechanism to slap lipstick on the proverbial pig are over.
Audiences reject liars.
Don’t lie.
Don’t make shit up.
Don’t overestimate your ability to keep your promises.
Don’t overestimate how much people care about your brands or product.
Don’t shy away from client pain, even if your client doesn’t want to hear it.
Truth rules.

40. AND THEN FIND SOME WICKED TENSIONS
40
You’ve got your love, your pain and your truths.
Find the push and pull between the forces of your investigation.
List them out.
Work with them.
Figure out the play between love and pain.
Find a space in the tension where your brand exists that’s deadly true and slightly scary.
(Slightly scary usually means you’re doing something right)

41. 41
LOVE, PAIN, TENSION, TRUTH
Take the elements and weave them together
into a provocative and relevant brand story for
your brand that culminates in a brand purpose.

42. INFUSING IT

43. 43
Once you’ve got a great brand articulated,
it’s time to
PROGRAM THE
ORGANIZATIONAL INSTINCT

44. THE INFUSION OF KNOWING HAS TO HAPPEN IN MULTIPLE DIRECTIONS
Great business leaders
often need to adopt the
skills to also be great
brand leaders.
TOP DOWN BOTTOM UP LATERALLY
The culture leaders of a
company, no matter what
level, need to feel
inspired by the brand.
Everyone needs to know
how to work through the
brand and support
others.
KEY ENABLERS
Consistency and
tangible proof of
commitment
KEY ENABLERS
Ownership and
pathways to lead
KEY ENABLERS
Filters for
decision-making and
room for creation and
experimentation

45. INFUSION: THE BRAND STRATEGIST IS THE TEACHER
45
It’s imperative that the brand strategist infuses the organization with the thinking and instinct of
the brand foundations.
Some common techniques are:
Coaching
Workshops & Creation Sessions
Classes
Brand materials
Ongoing check-ins

46. DOING IT

47. 47
SO WE GO MAKE SHIT NOW RIGHT?

48. 48
YAS KWEEN

49. 49
If we’ve done our jobs right
THE VIRUSES HAVE INFECTED THE
ORGANISM, (RE)WRITING THE CODES
OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM

50. DOING: THE BRAND STRATEGIST IS THE HERDING DOG/WOLF
50
At this point, the organization should start to infuse all its decisions with the brand.
Our role is to nip, guide, suggest, help and also hone if needed.

51. TO SUM IT UP

52. 52
Your brand is not your
communications campaign.
YOUR BRAND IS WHO YOU ARE AND
HOW YOU MAKE DECISIONS

53. 53
COMPANIES THAT THRIVE TODAY
(AND WILL THRIVE TOMORROW)
TREAT BRAND AS AN OPERATING SYSTEM

54. 54
The way forward:
DECOUPLE MACRO BRAND
STRATEGY FROM IMMEDIATE
CREATIVE DELIVERABLES

55. 55
BE BRAVE:
EMBRACE LOVE, PAIN,
TENSION & TRUTH

56. 56
PROGRAM THE
ORGANIZATIONAL INSTINCT

57. 57
GO CHANGE THE WORLD.

58. THANK YOU