How new technologies help keep brand planning simple

Daniel Kohlstaedt, managing director of PurpleLeaf Strategy, says that a brand plan should tell a story. “It justifies your budget requests and communicates to your field force what they need to do to follow a given strategy,” he continues. Too often, however, the ways teams build their brand plans get in the way of efficient and effective strategy development.

For many brand leaders – whose functions can sit within commercial excellence, global or regional brand leadership, or go-to-market teams – brand planning happens in slide decks or spreadsheets. Teams collaborate in PowerPoint templates, entering tonnes of data on their brand’s market performance, the environmental factors that impact their strategy, and competitive landscape into static documents. This can feel more like a menial task than a true strategic project.

“Every brand manager knows that brand planning is an important process, but often they feel they’re filling in meaningless slides that are randomly sequenced,” Kohlstaedt says. “This leads them to focus on the wrong questions: the ‘how’ of filling in brand plans, rather than the ‘what’ of their strategy.”

Kohlstaedt, who has served as a global brand director himself, knows these pain points all too well: “Brand leaders are very busy and carry a lot of responsibility. There is no room for redundant or useless exercises done for the sake of making a slide deck.”

Pharma has transformed much of its business to fit today’s digital demands. Kohlstaedt argues that brand planning should do the same. With the right technology – built specifically for the needs of brand teams as they develop impactful strategies – brand leaders can use the most complete, up-to-date data to hone their brand storytelling and position their products for success.

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