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I’ve wanted to write about Brand Strategy on its own for a while, but have always struggled to articulate what it actually is — and, just as importantly, what it isn’t.

The word “strategy” gets thrown around constantly in this industry — often in ways that reveal how fuzzy its meaning has become across beer, design and marketing alike.

– “We need help with our label strategy.”
– “What’s our visual strategy?”
– “Our social media strategy could use some love.”

So today, we want to clearly define how we think about Brand Strategy.

This isn’t a theoretical framework — it’s a practical process we’ve refined over the last 16+ years to help breweries and beverage brands build lasting, differentiated businesses.

Let’s get into it.

(Above): Brand Strategy outlines how your brand will stand apart in a way that matters — and how this will create long term value for your business.

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So, what is Brand Strategy?

One of the better definitions we’ve come across comes from Michael Porter at Harvard Business Review:

“Strategy is the answer to the question: How are we going to become and remain unique?”

That’s the heart of it. Strategy isn’t about being better — it’s about being different in a way that matters to the people you’re trying to reach and allows you to build a profitable, sustainable business.

Here’s how we define Brand Strategy in our own work:

Brand Strategy outlines how your brand will achieve and maintain meaningful differentiation in the market — and how that position creates long-term value for your business.

Because strategy deals with the future — and the future is unknowable — it’s not about guarantees. It’s about improving your odds.

It’s a forward-looking exercise by definition. Strategy helps you focus on what’s ahead — not just react to what’s happening right now.

This includes things like:

– Defining your core positioning and differentiators 
– Defining your key messaging pillars and origin story 
– Understanding your audience and what they care about
– Clarifying your voice, personality and visual tone
– Building alignment internally so your team can move in the same direction
– Establishing a framework to guide creative, marketing and business decisions over time

Strategy isn’t a physical deliverable. It’s the foundation everything else builds on. 

And maybe most importantly — strategy is about making choices. You can’t do everything. So you have to decide what matters most and invest accordingly. Strategy, at its core, is a resource allocation exercise. Where will you focus your energy, time and money to win? What will you deliberately not do?

(Above): Brand Strategy doc and mood board for MAP Brewing's brand refresh, Read a case study on this project. And listen to our podcast conversation with their team for even more background context. 

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Brand Strategy is not a checklist. It’s a compass.

The goal here isn’t to build a sprawling brand manual. Strategy should be clear, concise and actionable — something your team can actually use.

And while structure matters, the best strategies often hinge on a creative leap — a bold idea or an unexpected connection that only your brand can make. 

The format doesn’t matter. Clarity does. 

Strategy helps you answer:

– What are we trying to build?
– Who are we building it for?
– What do we want to be known for?
– How will we stand out?

If you don’t have answers to those questions, your design and marketing work is just guesswork.

One more thing: Brand Strategy isn’t a mood board, a logo or a series of stakeholder interviews. It’s the thinking that should precede all of these things.

And if an agency is selling you “strategy” that’s really just visual direction, be careful. You might be paying $50k for a Pinterest board. (Womp. Womp.)

(Above): Mood Boards we created to art direct AleSmith's hard cider Brand Extension. This exercise is NOT Brand Strategy, though it is an important part of that larger process.

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What We Define in a Brand Strategy / Essence Document

So what does this look like in practice? Here's what we typically define in our Brand Strategy process:

– Brand Positioning — What you do, who you do it for and how you’re different in the market

– Audience Definition — A high-level articulation of who you’re speaking to and what they care about. We keep this simple — in most cases, you don’t need layered personas or complex research exercises. You just need to define a genuine problem you’re solving for a specific group of people. That’s usually enough.

– Key Messaging Pillars — The 3 to 5 big ideas you want people to understand about your brand

– Brand Voice & Personality — How your brand speaks and behaves in the world

– Brand Essence — A distilled articulation of your brand’s core identity (often a sentence or two, sometimes just a phrase)

– Brand Story — Why your company exists and what you stand for

– Vision & Values — What guides your internal culture and long-term ambition

– Visual & Verbal Tone — General direction for how your brand should look and feel, even before design begins

– Competitive Set Audit — A cursory review of who you’re up against, how they’re positioned and how their branding shows up in the market

– Brand Architecture (if needed) — How products, lines or sub brands relate to one another

– Strategic Recommendations — Any important insights or context that should shape creative execution. These generally include things like portfolio recommendations, extensions, marketing initiatives and other channels or routes to market you might consider.

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The goal isn’t to write an overwrought brand manifesto. It’s to create a practical tool that can guide decisions and keep your team aligned for the long haul — without overcomplicating what doesn’t need to be.

*** What we don’t always include (but you might need) ***

– Deep competitive analysis and market research

– Consumer insights based on ethnographic research / surveys

– Brand health metrics and measurement frameworks

These are valuable tools — they’re just not what we do. Our focus is narrower by design: Helping breweries define who they are, how they’re different and how to bring that to life through identity, packaging, storytelling and design.

We define Brand Strategy as a focused positioning exercise — one that informs identity, packaging, storytelling and design. 

It’s part of a long-term effort to achieve and maintain meaningful differentiation through branding — not a one-off deliverable or a management consulting engagement. Our strength lies in helping breweries clarify who they are, how they’re different and how to bring that to life in the real world.

Brand Strategy doesn’t eliminate risk — it helps you make better bets by aligning your energy around the most likely path to success.

We’re planning to share a follow-up BBT issue on research in the branding process — the good, the bad and the ugly — and where we think it can actually move the needle.

(Above, Top): Malibu Brewing's Brand Strategy doc. We also mapped out their Brand Architecture as part of their refresh.

(Above, Bottom): Revisit our thinking on Key Messaging Pillars. 

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Strategy vs. Tactics 

Let’s say your long-term goal is to become the most beloved beer brand in Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.

That’s strategy — a desired future state.

Tactics are how you get there:

– Launching a UP-inspired merch line

– Partnering with fishing guides or conservation groups

– Prioritizing placements in local outdoor stores

– Investing in lifestyle photography and content

– Creating a UP lifestyle / Sub Brand

A clear strategy helps you evaluate every new opportunity: Does this move us closer to where we want to be? Or is it a distraction?

Here’s another way to think about it: If your strategic goal is to be the de facto lifestyle brand in your region, one possible strategy might be to position your brand as inseparable from the culture of the Upper Peninsula — its outdoors, its people and their pursuits. 

The tactics — sponsoring local fly fishing tournaments, collaborating with a regional boot brand, building a photo library that feels unmistakably northwoods, brewing a rotating series of small batch beers named after state parks, co-branding with iconic local brands (Stormy Kromer, Carhartt, Ford, Shinola) — are how that strategy becomes real.

Brand Strategy works the same way. If your goal is clear and directional, the right tactics will reveal themselves.

How long should Brand Strategy last?

Strategy isn’t permanent, but it should be durable. We recommend revisiting it every 2–3 years, or whenever your business experiences a major shift:

– Opening a new location

– Launching a new product or sub brand

– Entering a new market

– Considering a rebrand

You don’t need to overhaul everything — just check in and ask: Does this still hold up?

Same goes for your Brand Architecture Map. You don’t need it framed on the wall, but you should revisit it any time your portfolio or business model changes in a meaningful way.

(Above, Top): Brand Architecture Map we developed for Ore Dock Brewing as part of their rebrand. 

(Above, Bottom): Here's a step-by-step guide and free download to help your team build your Brand Architecture Map.

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A quick note to wrap us up 

There's no single definition of Brand Strategy. It means different things depending on who you ask — and how many people are in the room when you ask them.

What we've shared here is how we define it at CODO — our approach, refined over nearly 100 breweries and hundreds of food and beverage brands. 

It's not academic. It’s not theoretical. It's built to help small to mid-market businesses make better decisions, gain clarity and build brands that last.

While we ground our process in research and clarity, the most resonant strategies usually emerge from a creative leap — one that connects dots in a way no one else sees.

If you're tackling this work internally, start with these fundamentals:

– What do we want to be known for?

– Who are we building this for?

– How will we stand out from everyone else doing similar work?

– Does this decision move us closer to our strategic goal?

Strategy doesn’t have to be precious. It just needs to be clear and useful — a way to help you make better decisions. 

Remember Porter's question from the beginning: "How are we going to become and remain unique?" Everything else — your logo, your packaging, your marketing — flows from how you answer that. Get the strategy right first, and the rest will follow.