Bonus Resources
LEAN BRAND CANVAS
Download the Lean Brand Canvas found in Chapter 4 of the book.
The Lean Brand Canvas is a one-page tool and has been optimized specifically for global brand building. It’s an easy-to-use template for clearly laying out each brand building block and corresponding hypotheses. Simply fill in each box of the canvas with the assumptions that you want to validate.
Start by defining the target market and then work your way through each of the following building blocks until you have determined the total product offering.
1. Target
• Who is the product gatekeeper?
• Who is the actual end-user?
• Who are the influencers and opinion leaders?
2. Key Insight
• What are the Accepted Consumer Beliefs that can be leveraged when creating solutions?
• What are the real needs that consumers are trying to solve when choosing between brands?
3. Positioning
• How is the brand different vs. the competition?
• What is the gap that your brand can own in the mind of the consumer?
4. Promise
• What are the emotional and rational benefits that the brand promises to provide to end-users?
• What are the key brand associations that reinforce that promise?
5. Ethos
• What does the brand stand for?
• What are the beliefs that the brand lives by?
• What is the internal compass that guides the brand to meet the brand’s promise?
6. Story
• What is the narrative that explains the “reasons to believe” that the brand can deliver on the positioning and promise?
• What are the emotional and conceptual mechanics that support the brand story?
7. Experience
• How does the target market experience the brand?
• How does the brand come to life at each touchpoint?
8. Value
• Identify the value chain needed to deliver the branded product/solution to the end-user.
• How does the branded product/solution exceed value expectations at each link of the value chain to deliver on the brand experience?
9. Product
• Clearly define the total product offering: Product, Pricing, Distribution, Communication, Promotions, Service
• Does each product element bring the Lean Brand Canvas strategy to life?
• Does each element work together to create synergy and consistency?
INBOUND 2019
Here is a link to the presentation I gave at Inbound 2019 titled “BRANDS FIRST, TECHNOLOGY SECOND: Why you should always lead with your brand strategy.”
