Brand strategy: positioning, values and protecting your name.

01How brand strategy differs from marketing strategy and corporate design

What

A long-term plan for your brand

Not

A logo, a campaign or an ad plan

Result

Ten sentences everyone works from

The German business reference Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon defines brand strategies as conditional, long-term and overarching plans for reaching your brand goals [1]. Put simply: you decide what your brand should stand for and line everything else up behind it. The brand itself lives in your customers' heads. The same reference describes it as the sum of all the ideas a brand name or brand mark triggers in customers [2].

Three terms often get mixed up:

A marketing strategy follows demand and competition in the market and your own resources [3]. You adjust channels and budget more often, while the brand strategy is meant to last [1]. How it turns into a visual identity is covered in our guide on what a consistent visual identity includes.

02Brand positioning: put the core into one sentence

Question

What should customers think of when they think of you?

Test

Four questions from the literature

Result

One positioning statement

Positioning is the place your brand should hold in the minds of your audience. In the Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, Burmann and Markgraf name four conditions for it [4]. They make four test questions:

1. Do your customers want it? The position follows what they wish for.
2. Does it set you apart? If three competitors promise the same, it is not a position.
3. Can you deliver it? With your people, your skills and your money.
4. Does it fit you? The position has to match who you are as a brand.

Put the result into one sentence: “For [audience] who [problem], [brand] is the [offer] that [benefit], because [proof].” A made-up example for a bike workshop: “For commuters who need their bike back the same day, our workshop is the repair service with drop-off in the morning and pick-up in the evening, because we keep parts for common models in stock.”

A positioning map helps you compare. Draw two axes your customers care about, such as price and advice, and plot yourselves and three competitors. An empty spot is only worth taking if customers actually want to be there.

03Describe your target audience precisely enough to say no

Question

Who exactly?

Raw material

Your customers' own words

Result

One main group with situation and problem

“Everyone aged 25 to 55” is not a target audience. Describe a situation instead: who buys, when, with which problem, and what has kept them from buying so far? That helps later with every ad.

Pay attention to the words your customers use themselves. Your positioning statement will later be built from them. You will find them in your own records:

• Questions from enquiries and emails, written down word for word.
• Praise and criticism from reviews, in the customers' own words.
• Reasons for buying or dropping out, from short conversations with customers.
• What competitors promise and what their customers miss.

In Switzerland, language is part of the audience. In 2024, German was a main language for 61% of the population, French for 23% and Italian for 8%; one person can have several main languages [5]. If French- or Italian-speaking customers should buy too, check early whether your name and key messages work in those languages.

You end up with one main audience that you write the strategy for. That makes it easier to turn down enquiries that don't fit.

04Define your values and tone of voice

Values

Three at most, each tied to behavior

Tone

Four scales instead of adjectives

Result

Key messages with examples

Values like “quality” or “innovation” say nothing, because everyone claims them. A value only helps when it describes behavior. Write two sentences for each one: “For us this means …” and “That's why we don't …”. An example: being honest about prices means customers know the price before the appointment. That's why there are no extra costs in the small print. Three values like that are enough.

For tone of voice, the research and consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group describes four dimensions: formal or casual, serious or funny, respectful or irreverent, matter-of-fact or enthusiastic [6]. Mark a point on each scale. That is more concrete than “modern and friendly”.

Keep voice and tone apart. Mailchimp's public style guide puts it this way: “You have the same voice all the time, but your tone changes.” [7] A reply to a complaint sounds more serious than an Instagram story, but both should sound like you.

Write the small things into your key messages too: whether you address customers formally or informally, which words you avoid, and whether your German copy for Switzerland follows Swiss spelling.

05Choose your brand architecture: umbrella brand, family or individual brands

Question

How do company, products and names relate?

For small brands

Usually one umbrella brand

Later

A new brand only for a clear reason

Brand architecture organizes your brands. It sets out which role each one plays and how they relate to each other [8]. This matters as soon as a second line, a location or an offer for different customers comes along.

Aaker and Joachimsthaler also describe subbrands and endorsed brands [8]. Here an offer gets its own name while the main brand stays visible behind it.

For small brands, one umbrella brand usually fits. Every ad and recommendation then pays into the same name. A separate brand only makes sense when an offer speaks to different customers and would confuse people under the main name.

And your own name as the brand? It fits when you yourself are the offer, for example as an architect or coach. If you plan a team or a later sale, a separate brand name is easier to hand over.

06Protect your brand name: register a trade mark, don't patent it

Switzerland

Filing with the IPI

Germany

Filing with the DPMA

EU

EU trade mark with the EUIPO

You can't patent a brand name. A patent is granted for a technical invention, meaning a new solution to a technical problem [9][10]. Names and logos are protected as trade marks. The offices charge fees (as of November 2026, subject to change):

A registered trade mark only protects you where it is registered [16]. So a Swiss mark does not cover Germany, and an EU mark does not cover Switzerland. A registered Swiss mark can be extended to other countries through the IPI [16].

Search before you file. Neither the IPI nor the DPMA checks whether an identical or similar mark already exists [12][17]. The IPI therefore strongly recommends searching for similar marks and company names first, for example in Swissreg, its database [12]. Both offices do check whether the sign can work as a trade mark. Purely descriptive terms such as “waterproof” for rainwear are excluded in both countries [12][21]. So a purely descriptive name is hard to protect.

“Not in the register, so it's free” is not always true. In Germany, protection can also arise through use, once the sign is established as a trade mark among the relevant public [18]. In Switzerland, protection generally needs registration, but a similar company name in the commercial register can still clash with your mark [12]. This is not legal advice. If in doubt, have a trade mark specialist check it.

07Make the strategy visible on your website, in ads and on social media

Website

Positioning in the first line

Ads

One promise from ad to page

Social

Topics from values and customer questions

Website. Your positioning statement becomes the first line of your home page, in your customers' words. Your key messages apply right down to buttons and forms. You can suggest which name Google shows for your site in search results with WebSite structured data on your home page [19]. How to write that copy is covered in our guide to website copy that turns visitors into customers.

Ads. The ad promises what your positioning promises, and the page behind it delivers. More on that in our guide about the page your ad lands on. Don't plan only ads for quick sales. In 2013, Les Binet and Peter Field analyzed 996 campaigns from 700 brands in the databank of the UK agency body IPA. Campaigns produced the largest number of very large effects when around 40% of the budget went into activation and the rest into brand building [20]. That is a finding across all campaigns from 83 categories together, not a fixed rule for every small budget. They also advise measuring short-term and long-term effects separately, because short-term figures alone can mislead [20].

Social media. Take your topics from your values and your audience's questions, not just from trends. More on that in our guide on how to set up a plan for your channels.

From our work. For the architect Dilsoz Kaidy, logo, domain and website came from one team. The logo is made from her initials DK with a door swing like on a floor plan, a sign taken from her profession. On the website, clients read in plain words what she does.

08Brand strategy template: ten sentences to complete

Format

Ten sentences with gaps

Together with

Everyone who writes or designs for you

Revisit

Before a relaunch or a new offer

Complete the ten sentences together. On the right is a made-up example: a bike workshop that doesn't exist.

If a sentence is hard to fill, reread its section above.

Honest limits. We don't know of solid figures on how much a brand strategy brings a small brand. The steps above rely on the literature we cite, not on a study of our own. You can work out positioning and audience yourselves. Help is worth it when your team can't agree, or when name, logo and website are being made anyway. For registering a trade mark, especially in several countries, bring in a trade mark specialist, as the IPI recommends [12].

At nalu, Manu and Lara work out positioning, name, logo, colors and tone of voice, brought together in a short brand guide for your team. Agency, freelancer or collective? Our guide on the three ways of working together compares them. The first call takes 30 minutes on video and is free, get in touch.