Strategic Communication

A brand with a good product and an unclear voice reads as a brand with a problem. Not because anyone can articulate what is wrong, but because nothing accumulates.

Strategic communication is the discipline of deciding what a brand stands for, saying it in a way that is unmistakably that brand, and keeping it consistent across every place it is heard — press, retail, social, packaging, the sales deck, the founder's interview.

The problem it solves

Most brand problems are consistency problems wearing a disguise. The agency pitched one thing, the founder described it differently on a podcast, the distributor's material says a third thing, and the packaging says none of them. Each version is defensible on its own. Together they mean the brand has no position at all.

The work is to write the narrative once, properly, and then make it survive contact with eleven different channels and four different markets.

What it covers

Identity and tone of voice, the core narrative and the messages derived from it, press and media relations, launch and event communications, stakeholder and trade communications, and the ongoing reputation work that follows a launch — including the part where it goes wrong.

deliverables:

• title: Brand narrative & messaging text: One story, written down, with the message hierarchy that keeps it intact. icon: ri:chat-quote-line
• title: Identity & tone of voice text: A voice specific enough to be recognisable and broad enough to survive translation. icon: ri:quill-pen-line
• title: PR & media relations text: Press strategy, spokesperson preparation and the long game around a launch. icon: ri:newspaper-line
• title: Launch & event communications text: Everything said on the day, and the run-up to it, written down in advance. icon: ri:calendar-event-line
• title: Stakeholder & trade communications text: The version for distributors and retail partners, which is not the version for press. icon: ri:team-line
• title: Reputation & issues management text: Knowing what to do in the first hour, agreed before it is needed. icon: ri:shield-check-line

process:

• title: Audit text: Read everything the brand has said for the last two years and find the contradictions.
• title: Position text: Agree the single narrative every channel will be measured against.
• title: Build the system text: Message hierarchy, tone of voice, and the templates that keep them in use.
• title: Operate text: Run the communications, train the spokespeople, adjust from what lands.

outcomes:

• title: One narrative, told the same way everywhere metric: Across every channel
• title: A voice that is recognisable without the logo metric: Unprompted recall
• title: A plan for the bad day metric: Agreed in advance

faqs:

• q: Is this press relations? a: >- No. Press is one channel. This is the positioning and the message system that every channel draws from — including the ones nobody briefs an agency for, like the distributor's email and the product listing.
• q: Do you write in-house teams' copy? a: >- We build the system and train the people who use it. Handing over a document and leaving tends to mean the document is ignored within two quarters.
• q: What if the brand already has a strong voice? a: >- Then the job is usually not to write a new one but to find where it breaks and fix those specific places. That is a smaller and cheaper piece of work.