Brand Platform
The framework that defines who the brand is.
A brand platform is the strategic framework that expresses who a brand is: its purpose, its positioning, its values, its personality, and its promise. It is the document that provides criteria for the entire organization, from a business decision to the tone of an email, and keeps the brand consistent as it grows.
The pieces of a brand platform
The platform is built as a system: each element fulfills a function and they all fit together. A brilliant purpose with an incoherent personality produces a brand that sounds good and does not work.
Purpose
The brand's raison d'être, beyond profit.
Positioning
The competitive space the brand decides to occupy.
Values and principles
The code with which the brand makes decisions.
Personality
The human character of the brand: how it speaks and how it behaves.
Promise
What the brand commits to deliver at every touchpoint.
Brand idea
The concept that synthesizes it all in a few words.
The brand platform is the operating system for your growth.
A platform fits in a sentence
The deliverable is dozens of pages, but what the organization remembers are five or six phrases: the brand idea, the promise, the purpose. When those phrases are well-written, anyone in the company knows how to make a decision without asking. These are some of the ones we have defined.
Brand platform vs. positioning
Who are you
The strategic foundation that defines the brand's identity inside and out. Stable over time, it guides culture, experience, and communication.
Where do you play
The competitive space that the brand occupies in the market. More tactical, it adjusts when the market moves.
Positioning decides the playing field; the platform decides who gets to play. It is part of the work of brand strategy and it is based on the previous diagnosis.
Signs that you need a platform
- The brand makes different decisions depending on who is in the room.
- The purpose sounds good on paper and stays right there.
- Each team describes the brand in a different way.
- The organization is growing and a common framework is needed.
- You are going to enter new markets or categories.
- The internal culture and the external promise no longer match.
the year in which the story begins. For Osborne, we defined a platform that organizes two and a half centuries of history into a few concepts, legacy and future among them, and a promise that is later brought down to each piece: transforming the authentic into the extraordinary.
Shall we build your brand's platform?
About brand platform
What does a brand platform include?
Purpose, positioning, values, personality, promise, and a brand idea that synthesizes it all in a few words.
What is it used for in day-to-day life?
It is the framework that aligns business decisions, culture, and communication. It provides the criteria to say yes and to say no.
Can you build without a prior diagnosis?
Diagnosis and positioning are the foundation. On them, we build the platform as part of the brand strategy.
How does it differ from a brand audit?
The brand audit Look back and describe where the brand is today. The platform looks forward and decides where it wants to be. The normal thing to do is to do them one after the other.