Brand-Dev Playbook

Module

Brand-Dev Playbook

Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech

Stronger Brand → More Profitable B2B, Tech, Deeptech Business - Every Research Concludes

A strong brand does multiple jobs:

It helps market describe you. Buyers choose you.
It helps talent decide whether to join.
It helps investors understand your ambition.
It helps you say no to partnerships and opportunities that don’t fit.

The objective of a branding exercise is to create a clear, credible, and differentiated market position that aligns leadership, sharpens the pitch to customers already buying services, and gives the company a consistent (and differentiated) language across website, in-person events, LinkedIn, hiring, sales etc.

The brand identity / shape - should be aligned with the founders’ & leadership’s vision and the expectations of the customers (+ the ecosystem), while ensuring that the brand stands out from the competition (the dashed section in the Venn diagram below).

Step 1: Articulating the Foundational Brand Aspects

A. To articulate the founding / leadership team’s vision, at Story99 we use something called the DNA test (a list of around a dozen questions with multiple choice answers) followed by a brand personality exercise (that’s more involved - where we force each founder / leader to pick 5 personalities from a long list of 60) - at the end of this step, we are able to articulate what the company’s core culture, drive and

B. To articulate the customer’s needs, we’d ideally like to do calls 📞 with few existing paying customers* (30-40min each) - and using the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework, articulate their perspective & buying journey.

B2B Customer Needs

* If speaking with customers is not possible for any reason, we will rely on information relayed by you - hopefully you have all the answers. Even the customer call transcripts, where they describe their problem and how they go about finding solutions, shortlisting few and finally choosing one - is super helpful.

C. Lastly, in this step 1, we look at some direct / indirect competitors

To get a sense of narratives and identities projected by alternative brands and competitors in any particular space, we check out their websites and LinkedIn activities and if we are doing customer interviews then ask the customers about their take on these other brands / offerings / products / solutions etc.

Step 2: Refining the positioning

While positioning needs to be aligned with a company’s DNA, it also needs to be strategic - making it easy for the market to understand what we offer an in what context our offering / solution is right for them compared to other options they might be considering.

Positioning For AI Native Companies

Significance of Positioning in the AI Search Era

We typically start with the positioning the client wants and then evaluate the pros and cons and often, arrive at a better alternative. More details in our positioning playbook below:

Positioning99 (1)

Step 3: Developing visual brand guidelines

Evaluate logo of brands in our landscape and suggest new logo options (if needed)
Evaluate typeface and colours being used in our landscape and fine-tune our colours
Articulate visual design guidelines
- primary colours, secondary colors and color combinations do’s and don’ts
- fonts - title and body
- recurring motifs and patterns
- infographic style
- illustration style
- examples of sample visual posts, visiting card designs etc

Step 4: Developing complete brand-identity

What needs to be articulated?	Remarks	How to use it?
Brand visual guidelines - logos, colours, fonts, visual-motifs, photo / illustration style	• should be different but not so much that we don’t fit in the category where we’d like to fit in • should be practical • should be aligned with our DNA and values	Everyone understand how to use visual brand guidelines.
Our positioning (1 line, 1 para, 1 page)	Should help us be the preferred choice under multiple different contexts	Makes it easy to ensure that the core story is the same everywhere - from calls, to website to decks to hiring communication.
Brand expectation What functional customer needs we meet and explicitly choose to talk about	• Should be aligned with what customers want • should be aligned with our DNA and values • Should ideally create some point of leveraged difference from other options / competitors	Same as above
Non-functional needs (social, personal, emotional)	• Should be aligned with what customers want • should be aligned with our DNA and values • Should definitely create some point of leveraged difference from other options / competitors	Same as above
Brand Civics Firm’s socio-economic political stance	• should be aligned with our DNA and values • something that most customers. care about	Helps the marketing team know when and how to talk about our stance - especially when it reflects in any actual decision - be it a new product feature or why we made the decision to change our HR policy.
Brand Affinity How do we want our customers / users to feel (via the product / service, buying experience and through our communication)	• should be aligned with our DNA and values • should ideally be differentiated from competitor’s approach to brand affinity	Helps the product teams look at the the product from a feeling lens. Helps the marketing, communication and even sales teams - tweak their narrative to amp up these pre-decided feelings.
Brand Personality What personalities do we showcase through our product / offering and communication?	• should be aligned with our DNA and values	Like the above, it helps teams across product, servicing folks, marketers and sales people review what they are building and saying and find out opportunities to reinforce our agreed upon personality.
Brand Meaning Other external stimuli, with which we can establish association with (through frequency and repetition) to solidify our brand over time - such as rituals, celebrities, use of some distinctive assets / formats etc	• should be aligned with our DNA and values • should help us differentiate from competitors • should sit well with customers	Helps all the teams keep looking at more avenues to build a strong distinctive brand.
Language / words / phrases to repeat (and to avoid)	• should be aligned with our positioning • should be aligned with our DNA and values • should bring out our core personalities • Should help us be liked and understood by our customers	Easy to use handbook for marketing, sales and anyone else who writes on behalf of the firm (or representing the firm)

Step 5: Manifestation of the new brand identity

New logo (if requested for)
Improved sub-product / solution naming / brand architecture
A new website
Revised sales deck(s)
A new corporate video
Brandbook and guideline for all content / marketing / brand team members to use
Updated investor pitch-deck (for those raising funds)
Sample social media posts
Sample newsletter post

Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech

Get notified whenever we add or update a storytelling, marketing or brand framework relevant to B2B, tech and deeptech entities.