Brand Strategy & Positioning
A brand strategy answers the questions that most brands fail in everyday life: what do we stand for, who do we position against, how do we sound, and how do customers recognise us. In the best case, it becomes a document opened by design, sales and management alike. In the worst case, a PDF that disappears into a Sharepoint folder after two weeks. We work so the first case becomes more likely, across Germany and in close coordination with the founding team.
What a brand strategy actually contains
A solid strategy has five components: a positioning that places the brand in its competitive context, a brand promise in a single sentence, a set of three to five values with behavioural examples, a tone of voice with do and don't examples, and brand guidelines that tie the visual to the verbal. Concretely, that means we sit down with founders, team and ideally a handful of customers, listen, note phrasings, and pull the brand's language out of the conversation. Competitive analyses run in parallel and get visualised, so positioning decisions can be made on one screen instead of a spreadsheet mess.
We deliberately skip the pseudo-science. Brand archetype quizzes, brand onion diagrams or 16-field matrices only show up when they sharpen a concrete decision. Otherwise, no. The result is a strategy deck of 25 to 40 pages, at the end of which designers, copywriters and developers know what they are working against.
How strategy and design come together
Strategy is not the goal. It is the input for brand positioning, the later brand design and the brand guidelines. A typical project starts with a brand workshop, continues with two to three weeks of strategy work, and hands over into the visual phase. If a logo already exists and is meant to stay, a brand audit slots in between.
A typical project starts at €6,000 and goes higher for groups with multiple business units. We name the number honestly before the proposal, instead of hiding it behind consulting hours. Anyone wanting to run the brand build in parallel gets a clean handover point, not an open-ended retainer. What we do not do: branding folklore where the strategy itself takes centre stage. It is a tool, not a window display.
Strategy the design team actually uses
No 80-page PDF that nobody reads. We write positioning, values and brand promise so they are immediately usable in the next campaign brief.
A clear position, not a generic claim
Standing for everyone means standing for no one. We sharpen the brand against the competition so customers spot the difference at first glance.
A voice that does not sound manufactured
We distill the tone from real conversations with founders, team and customers, not from tonality wheels. That way it stays consistent without going stiff.
Connected to the visual, not running parallel
Strategy and design move together. We shape the positioning so it carries the brand design later on, instead of blocking it.
Selected work
IKEA × AstraZeneca – Concept
Cross-brand concept: how would IKEA package a medical product? A conceptual brand experiment.
Finanzguru – Brand Design
A fintech brand that works inside a subway tunnel: campaigns, iconography and tone of voice for Finanzguru.
Velvet Soul Street – Corporate Design
Streetwear energy in a stitched wordmark: identity, packaging and stationery for a label.
Frequently asked
A full brand strategy with research, workshops, positioning and brand guidelines typically lands between €6,000 and €18,000, depending on scope and number of stakeholders. We narrow the range in the first conversation based on the actual goals.
From kick-off to final strategy deck, 4 to 10 weeks is realistic. Tighter questions move faster, parallel market research or a competitive study extends the timeline.
A logo without strategy rarely holds up beyond two years, because every new campaign reopens the debate. We make the brand thinking under the logo visible, so the existing design does not have to be renegotiated all the time.
Yes. Briefings, workshops and strategy sessions run fully remote via Figma, Miro and video. For larger projects we add an on-site workshop, scheduled as needed, across Germany.
The brand guidelines become the foundation for the [brand design](/en/leistungen/identitaet/markendesign) or a [brand relaunch](/en/leistungen/strategie/markenrelaunch). We stay with the transition instead of handing over the deck and disappearing.
Start a project?
Tell me briefly what it is about — in a 30-minute first conversation we clarify whether and how we can work together.