Thinking

Driving Brand Growth Strategy Beyond the Funnel

Pierre Laurent Baudey

Your brand strategy is likely obsolete. If it’s built on predictable journeys, annual plans, and siloed channel tactics, it was designed for a world that no longer exists. The market is not a battlefield to be conquered; it is an ecosystem to be cultivated. Customers are not targets to be captured; they are active participants who shape your brand’s meaning every day. Thriving in this environment requires a fundamental shift in thinking. Success is no longer about being the loudest voice but about being the most relevant and integrated presence. This is the new playbook for driving brand growth strategy—one built for resilience, adaptation, and sustained relevance.

In today’s highly competitive market, how do brands like Nike continuously stand out?

Vivaldi’s CEO Erich Joachimsthaler discusses the modern relationship between brands and consumers with Pierre-Laurent Baudey, a former 22-year veteran of Nike, a member of Tillamook’s Advisory board, and founder of his own practice, PLB LAB. In this episode of The Business of Platforms, these two passionate brand-builders discuss what it takes to build a strong brand, from evergreen principles to the three fundamental and consumer-centric pillars for brand growth. Tune in to the conversation and find highlights below:

 

Episode 19: On Driving Brand Growth, with Pierre-Laurent Baudey on Vimeo.

Some things in brand growth will never change. First: a consumer-centric strategy and execution (however, as you’ll see later in this post, the level of centricity has turned into obsession). Second, failing for success: there’s no failure, only feedback. Top brands own their outcomes and use failure as an opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. Lastly, the art of brand storytelling. Humans crave stories, and the best brands amplify personal stories that people can project themselves into.  In today’s highly competitive market, brands must build relationships through trust, and the way to build trust is by being authentic and standing for values. As a result, the best brands have the guts to stand for something bold and attach themselves to a larger purpose. Pierre-Laurent shares how strong brands have implemented three fundamental pillars to achieve long-lasting brand growth, which we can call “KIIS” Model. 

What is a Brand Growth Strategy?

Let’s discard the old definition. A brand growth strategy is not a static, linear plan locked in a binder. It’s not a checklist of campaigns to execute. Instead, think of it as a dynamic system—a living framework that guides how your brand creates value in a constantly shifting landscape. The old model was about pushing a message through a funnel. The new model is about cultivating an ecosystem where customers actively participate. It’s a complete plan, yes, but one designed for adaptation, focused on making your brand more valuable by embedding it into the lives of your customers. This approach moves beyond simply capturing market share; it’s about creating the market you want to lead by building a brand that is indispensable.

From a Linear Plan to a Dynamic System

The traditional approach to strategy was built for a predictable world. It assumed customers moved in straight lines from awareness to purchase. But people don’t live in funnels. They live in a fluid reality of scrolling, searching, sharing, and shopping across dozens of touchpoints. A modern brand growth strategy reflects this reality. It’s not a rigid roadmap but a responsive system designed to learn and evolve. It prioritizes building relationships over executing transactions and measures success through participation, not just performance. This shift requires a new mindset, one that sees the brand as a central organizing principle for the entire business, influencing everything from product innovation to customer service.

Core Levers for Growth

Even within this new paradigm, the fundamental goals of growth remain. The levers you pull, however, are operated with a different philosophy. Growth isn’t just about being louder; it’s about being more relevant and accessible. It’s about creating such a strong gravitational pull that customers choose you, advocate for you, and co-create the future of your brand with you. The core challenge is to build a brand that is not only distinct but also deeply integrated into the customer’s world, making it both memorable and meaningful. This is where a clear brand strategy becomes the engine for sustainable, long-term growth.

Penetrating Existing Markets

Winning in an established market is a fight for relevance. It’s about more than just stealing market share; it’s about earning mindshare. This means making your brand impossible to ignore and easy to choose. Leading brands achieve this by being mentally and physically available. They stand out with a distinctive identity and a clear point of view, ensuring they are top-of-mind during key decision moments. They also make themselves effortlessly accessible across all relevant channels, removing friction from the path to purchase. It’s a continuous effort to stay in sync with customer needs and cultural shifts, ensuring your brand remains the most compelling choice in a crowded field.

Developing New Markets and Products

Expanding into new territories or launching new products is about extending your brand’s ecosystem. It’s not simply about finding new customers; it’s about finding new ways to deliver on your brand’s core promise. This could mean entering a new geographic market, targeting a different customer segment, or innovating a product that solves a new problem. The key is to ensure that every expansion effort is a natural extension of your brand’s identity and purpose. Growth should feel authentic and coherent, strengthening the core brand rather than diluting it. Each new venture is an opportunity to reinforce what your brand stands for and deepen your relationship with your audience.

Strategic Frameworks for Building a Resilient Brand

To build a brand that can thrive amidst constant change, you need more than just a good idea. You need frameworks that help you see the market with clarity and act with intention. These are not rigid formulas but strategic lenses that bring focus to your efforts. They help you map your competitive environment, define your unique identity, and align your entire organization around a shared vision for growth. Using these frameworks allows you to move from reactive decision-making to proactive brand-building, creating an organization that is not just prepared for the future but is actively shaping it. This is the foundation of a truly resilient brand that can weather any storm and seize any opportunity.

The 4C Framework: Mapping Your Competitive Ecosystem

The 4C framework—Company, Category, Competitors, and Customers—is an essential tool for understanding your brand’s place in the world. It forces you to look beyond your own walls and see the broader ecosystem in which you operate. This holistic view is critical for identifying both threats and opportunities, allowing you to understand new customer behaviors, anticipate competitive moves, and adapt to technological shifts. By systematically analyzing each of these four areas, you can build a comprehensive picture of your strategic landscape and make more informed decisions about where to play and how to win.

Company: Defining Your Internal Values and Goals

Your brand strategy must begin from within. Before you can project a compelling identity to the world, you must have a clear understanding of who you are as a company. This means defining your core values, your mission, and your long-term business goals. What do you stand for? What unique capabilities do you possess? A strong internal alignment ensures that every action your company takes is a true reflection of your brand. This authenticity is the bedrock of customer trust and is essential for building a brand that is both consistent and credible in the eyes of your audience.

Category and Competitors: Finding Meaningful Differentiation

To stand out, you must first understand the landscape. Analyzing your category and competitors is about more than just identifying who else is in the market; it’s about finding your unique space within it. What are the established conventions of your category, and how can you challenge them? Where are your competitors strong, and where are they vulnerable? The goal is to carve out a position that is not only different but meaningfully so. True differentiation comes from offering a unique value proposition that resonates deeply with your target customers and is difficult for competitors to replicate.

Customers: Understanding Needs and Behaviors

Everything starts and ends with the customer. A deep understanding of your target audience is the foundation of any successful brand growth strategy. This goes far beyond basic demographics. You need to understand their needs, motivations, behaviors, and pain points. What are they trying to achieve, and how can your brand help them? By putting the customer at the center of your strategy, you can ensure that your products, messaging, and experiences are all designed to be maximally relevant and valuable. This customer-centric approach is what separates brands that merely exist from those that truly matter.

The 5 Brand Pillars: Building an Authentic Identity

If the 4C framework maps your external world, the 5 Brand Pillars help you define your internal one. These pillars—Purpose, Perception, Personality, Position, and Promotion—are the foundational elements that shape your brand’s identity. They provide a clear and consistent framework for how your brand looks, sounds, and acts in the world. By carefully defining each of these pillars, you can build a brand that is not only distinctive and memorable but also deeply authentic. This clarity helps align your team and ensures that every customer touchpoint is a coherent expression of your brand.

Purpose: The “Why” That Aligns with Customer Values

Your purpose is the “why” behind everything you do. It’s your reason for being, beyond just making a profit. A strong brand purpose connects with customers on an emotional level, aligning with their own values and beliefs. This is what transforms customers into advocates and builds lasting loyalty. In a world where people increasingly choose brands that stand for something, a clear and authentic purpose is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a strategic imperative. It serves as your North Star, guiding your decisions and inspiring both your employees and your customers.

Perception and Personality: Shaping How Your Brand Shows Up

Perception is how your customers see your brand, while personality is the set of human characteristics you project. Together, they define how your brand shows up in the world. Do you want to be seen as innovative and daring, or reliable and trustworthy? Is your personality witty and irreverent, or warm and supportive? Defining these elements is crucial for creating a consistent and relatable brand experience. Your personality should come to life in every interaction, from your social media voice to your customer service style, shaping a perception that is both intentional and powerful.

Position and Promotion: Defining Where and How You Compete

Your position is the unique space you occupy in the market and in the minds of your customers. It clarifies what makes you different and better than the alternatives. Once your position is defined, your promotion strategy dictates how you communicate that value to the world. This includes the channels you use, the messages you share, and the campaigns you run. A well-defined position ensures your promotional efforts are focused and effective, cutting through the noise to reach the right audience with a message that resonates and drives action.

Actionable Steps for Driving Brand Growth

Strategy without action is just a document. To bring your brand growth strategy to life, you need to translate your vision into a series of deliberate, focused initiatives. These are not just tactical to-dos but strategic imperatives that build on one another to create momentum. Each step is designed to strengthen your brand’s foundation, deepen your connection with customers, and expand your market presence. By systematically executing these actions, you can transform your brand from a passive entity into an active force for growth, creating a virtuous cycle of engagement, loyalty, and profitability that propels your business forward.

1. Know Your Audience

Truly knowing your audience means going beyond data points and personas. It requires deep empathy and a genuine curiosity about their lives. What motivates them? What challenges do they face? What role does your brand play in their world? This understanding should be the starting point for every decision you make. Invest in qualitative research, listen intently on social media, and create feedback loops that bring you closer to your customers. When you understand their context, you can create products, services, and experiences that feel less like marketing and more like a meaningful conversation.

2. Define Your Purpose and Brand Story

Your purpose is your why; your brand story is how you bring that why to life. A compelling story gives your brand a soul, transforming it from a faceless corporation into a relatable character. This narrative should be woven through everything you do, from your website’s “About Us” page to your advertising campaigns. It should be authentic, emotionally resonant, and easy for people to share. A great brand story doesn’t just sell a product; it invites people to become part of a larger mission, creating a powerful sense of community and belonging around your brand.

3. Build a Strong Digital Presence

In today’s world, your digital presence is your brand’s front door. It’s not enough to just have a website; you need to build a cohesive digital ecosystem where your brand can live, breathe, and interact with your audience. This includes your social media channels, your content hub, your email communications, and any other digital touchpoint. Each element should work together to create a seamless and consistent brand experience. Your digital presence should be a destination where customers can not only transact but also learn, engage, and connect with your brand on a deeper level.

4. Use Advertising to Convert Interest into Action

Effective advertising is a catalyst, not just a megaphone. It’s about reaching the right people, at the right moment, with a message that inspires them to take the next step. This requires a sophisticated approach that blends creativity with data. Use insights about your audience to craft compelling creative, and leverage targeting capabilities to ensure your message finds a receptive audience. The goal is not just to generate awareness but to convert interest into tangible action, whether that’s a website visit, a sign-up, or a purchase. Think of advertising as the fuel that accelerates your brand’s growth engine.

5. Expand Your Reach Across Multiple Channels

Your customers don’t live on a single channel, and neither should your brand. To maximize your reach and impact, you need to be present wherever your audience spends their time. This means adopting an omnichannel strategy that provides a consistent and integrated experience across physical and digital touchpoints. Whether a customer is interacting with you in-store, on social media, or through your mobile app, the experience should feel like it’s coming from one unified brand. This seamless presence makes your brand more accessible and reinforces your identity at every turn.

6. Be Open to Rebranding When Necessary

Markets evolve, customer expectations change, and sometimes a brand needs to evolve too. Rebranding is not a sign of failure; it’s a sign of strategic adaptation. It might be a subtle refresh to modernize your visual identity or a complete overhaul to signal a new direction for the business. The key is to approach rebranding as a strategic tool for growth, not just a cosmetic exercise. When done thoughtfully, a rebrand can re-energize your company, attract new audiences, and position you for the next chapter of success. It’s a core part of any long-term business transformation.

Specific Tactics for Market Expansion

Expanding your market presence requires a set of targeted tactics designed to push the boundaries of your brand. This is where your high-level strategy gets translated into on-the-ground execution. These tactics are about creating new pathways to customers, finding new audiences to engage, and building a powerful network of partners who can amplify your message. Each tactic should be viewed as an experiment in growth, allowing you to test new ideas, learn from the results, and continuously refine your approach. By combining these efforts, you can create multiple engines of growth that drive your brand into new and exciting territories.

Expand Your Distribution Channels

How your customers access your products is a critical part of the brand experience. Expanding your distribution channels means finding new ways to get your offerings into the hands of more people. This could involve launching an ecommerce store, partnering with new retail outlets, or exploring a direct-to-consumer model. The goal is to make your brand as convenient and accessible as possible, meeting customers wherever they prefer to shop. By diversifying your distribution, you not only increase your sales potential but also build resilience into your business model.

Find and Engage New Audiences

Growth often comes from reaching beyond your core customer base. This means identifying and engaging new audience segments that could benefit from your brand. Use market research and data analysis to uncover potential new demographics or psychographics to target. Then, tailor your messaging and marketing efforts to resonate with their specific needs and interests. Engaging new audiences is a powerful way to expand your market share and introduce your brand to a wider circle of potential advocates, creating new streams of revenue and influence.

Leverage Strategic Partnerships and Collaborations

You don’t have to grow alone. Strategic partnerships and collaborations can be a powerful force multiplier for your brand. By teaming up with complementary brands, influencers, or organizations, you can tap into their audiences, borrow their credibility, and create unique value for your customers. A well-chosen partnership can generate significant buzz, drive new customer acquisition, and open up opportunities that would be difficult to achieve on your own. Think of partnerships as a way to build a powerful ecosystem around your brand, creating a network effect that accelerates your growth.

Create Value with Original Content

Content is the currency of modern marketing. By creating valuable, original content, you can position your brand as a thought leader, build trust with your audience, and attract new customers. This could take the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, or whitepapers. The key is to create content that educates, entertains, or inspires your audience, rather than just sells to them. A strong content strategy can fuel your entire marketing engine, providing material for social media, email campaigns, and SEO efforts, all while building a deeper relationship with your audience.

Measuring Success and Optimizing with Data

A growth strategy is only as good as the results it delivers. To ensure your efforts are paying off, you need a robust system for measuring success and optimizing your approach based on data. This means moving beyond vanity metrics and focusing on the indicators that truly reflect the health and growth of your brand. Data should be the feedback loop that informs your strategy, allowing you to double down on what’s working and pivot away from what’s not. By embracing a data-driven culture, you can ensure that your brand growth is not just a matter of chance but a predictable outcome of smart, informed decisions.

Key Metrics for Tracking Brand Growth

Tracking brand growth requires a balanced scorecard of metrics that capture both brand health and business performance. These metrics provide a holistic view of your progress, helping you understand how your brand-building efforts are translating into tangible results. It’s not about tracking every possible data point but about identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most closely aligned with your strategic goals. This focused approach to measurement allows you to cut through the noise and get a clear picture of your brand’s trajectory, which is where powerful AI and data solutions can provide a significant competitive edge.

Website Traffic and Social Media Activity

Your digital channels are a rich source of data about your brand’s visibility and engagement. Metrics like website traffic, social media followers, and engagement rates can serve as early indicators of your brand’s growing awareness and appeal. Look beyond the raw numbers to understand the quality of this engagement. Are people spending more time on your site? Are they actively commenting and sharing your content? These signals of participation are often more valuable than simple reach, as they indicate a deeper connection with your brand and a growing community of followers.

Sales Volume and Customer Lifetime Value

Ultimately, brand growth must translate into business growth. Key commercial metrics like sales volume, market share, and repeat purchase rates are the ultimate proof of your strategy’s effectiveness. Perhaps the most important metric of all is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which measures the total revenue a customer generates for your business over time. A rising CLV is a clear sign that you are not just acquiring customers but building lasting, profitable relationships. This focus on long-term value is the hallmark of a truly successful brand growth strategy.

The 3 Pillars Driving Your Brand Growth Strategy

  1. Know Me. Brands are obsessed with comprehensively and deeply understanding their consumers. 
  2. Inspire and Innovate For Me. Brands should take every opportunity to continuously provide inspiring stories and innovative products to their consumers. 
  3. Serve Me. Brands must focus on creating a long-term two-way relationship with the consumer by providing relevant ecosystems that generate value for the consumer and enable their lives. 

These three pillars form a feedback loop thanks to digital technologies and platforms. By creating a digital ecosystem around their consumers, under regulation, brands can collect data from the platforms and generate insights about the consumers. As a result, the more brands interact with a consumer and the more consumers interact back, the more brands know about consumers and the more relevant their inspiration and innovation becomes, and the more consumers interact with them as a result.

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Frequently Asked Questions

My company’s strategy is still built around the traditional sales funnel. How do we begin shifting our thinking toward this more dynamic “ecosystem” model? The first step is to change the conversation internally. Instead of asking “How do we push customers through the funnel?” start asking “How do we become a valuable part of our customer’s world?” This isn’t about abandoning your sales goals; it’s about achieving them differently. Begin by mapping out all the ways customers interact with your category and your brand—not just the path to purchase, but how they research, share, and use products. This simple exercise often reveals that the linear funnel is a myth and helps your team see the brand as a system of interconnected touchpoints that requires cultivation, not just conversion tactics.

What’s the real difference between a brand’s ‘purpose’ and its ‘position’ in the market? Think of it this way: your purpose is your “why,” while your position is your “where.” Your purpose is the fundamental reason your company exists beyond making money; it’s the core belief that guides your decisions and connects with customer values. Your position, on the other hand, is the specific space you occupy in the competitive landscape and in your customer’s mind. It defines what makes you different and better than the alternatives. A strong purpose fuels your culture and your story, while a clear position guides your marketing and product strategy. You need both to build a brand that is both meaningful and memorable.

You mention being open to rebranding. How can a leadership team know if it’s a strategic necessity versus just a cosmetic change? A rebrand is strategic when your current brand identity no longer reflects the reality of your business or your future ambition. Ask yourself if there’s a major disconnect between who you are today and how the market perceives you. This often happens after a significant business model shift, a merger, or when you need to attract a completely new audience. If your brand is holding you back from these goals, it’s time for a strategic overhaul. If you’re simply trying to chase a design trend or your sales dipped for a quarter, you’re likely looking at a marketing refresh, not a fundamental rebrand.

With so many channels available, how should we prioritize where to expand our brand’s presence? Instead of trying to be everywhere, focus on being where it matters most to your audience. The key is to follow your customers, not the crowd. Start by identifying the channels where your target audience is most engaged and where your brand can provide genuine value. Don’t just set up a profile; consider how you can participate authentically in that environment. It’s far more effective to build a deep, meaningful presence on two or three core channels than to spread yourself thin across ten with generic content. Quality of engagement will always trump the quantity of channels.

The “Know Me” pillar emphasizes deep customer understanding. How can we gather these insights without just relying on basic demographic data? To truly know your customers, you have to move from data points to human stories. While demographics tell you who your customers are, you need qualitative insights to understand why they do what they do. This means investing in activities like one-on-one interviews, observing how people use your products in their natural environment, and analyzing social media conversations for sentiment and context. The goal is to build empathy and understand their motivations, frustrations, and aspirations. This deeper, more human-centric understanding is what allows you to create products and experiences that feel genuinely personal and valuable.

Key Takeaways

  • Shift from a Linear Plan to a Dynamic Ecosystem: Your brand strategy is no longer a static roadmap. It must operate as a responsive system that cultivates customer participation within their fluid, multi-channel lives, rather than trying to force them down a predictable path.
  • Make Brand the Central Organizing Principle: Use foundational frameworks like the 4Cs and 5 Pillars to build an authentic identity. This internal clarity allows your brand to guide every business decision, ensuring a coherent and powerful presence in the market.
  • Activate a Customer-Obsessed Growth Loop: Drive sustainable growth by focusing on three actions: deeply understanding your customer (Know), consistently delivering value (Innovate), and building a supportive ecosystem (Serve). This creates a powerful feedback cycle where customer interaction fuels ever-greater relevance.

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