I like it when something ends up looking simple.
Especially brand work.
Because I know it usually wasn't simple to begin with.
A brand might have ten different problems.
The market isn't clear.
The positioning isn't clear.
The team isn't aligned.
The website is too complicated.
There are too many products.
Everyone has an opinion.
Then comes the strategy work.
Meetings.
Research.
Interviews.
Writing.
More meetings.
Eventually you end up with one page.
Three sentences.
The client looks at it and says:
"That's it?"
Yes.
That's it.
I think "that's it" can actually be a good sign.
Because sometimes the value of brand work isn't adding more things.
It's finding the things you really can't afford to lose.
I used to be quite easily impressed by complexity.
The more complete a framework looked, the more like strategy it felt.
After doing this for a long time, I increasingly ask:
Does this actually help us make a decision?
If not.
Take it out.
Good brand work doesn't usually give a team ten more things to do.
It often gives them fewer.
Fewer meetings.
Less content.
Fewer rounds of tweaking.
Fewer arguments about questions that don't have useful answers.
And more clarity about:
Who we are.
What we're not.
What matters now.
That's why I'm not convinced that more complete is always better.
A brand isn't an exam.
You don't have to include every correct answer.
Sometimes one page is more useful than a brand book.
One sentence is more useful than ten values.
A clear "we don't do this" can be more useful than another campaign idea.
Of course, simple doesn't mean easy.
Quite the opposite.
Making a complicated problem simple is usually much harder than making it complicated.
So when a brand ends up looking very simple, I don't usually think:
"There's not much there."
I think:
Someone probably spent quite a lot of time getting it to this point.
