Decision #2: What Should This Brand Mean Beyond the Products?
In Decision #1, we looked at one of the most fundamental questions in brand building: Who are we willing to build this brand for?
Once that decision is made, the next becomes much clearer.
What do you want that customer to associate with your brand every time they see your name?
This is Decision #2: What Should This Brand Mean Beyond the Products?
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Most product companies spend time and resources deciding what to sell, but skip the part where they decide what they want the brand to mean.
They're very different decisions: products solve problems; brands create expectations.
A customer may buy one product because it meets a need today. They come back because they know what to expect from the brand behind it. Think about the T-shirt brand you reach for without thinking twice. You're not just buying another shirt—you're buying the confidence that it will fit, last, and feel exactly the way you expect.
That's why this is the second decision in the series. Once you've decided who you're building the brand for, you have to decide what you want that customer to associate with your name every time they see it.
What answering this question actually involves
This isn't about writing a mission statement, it’s not choosing three words to describe your company, and still yet it isn't creating a list of values that ends up buried somewhere on your website.
It's about deciding what customers should consistently experience whenever they encounter your brand.
That decision influences everything that follows:
Which products belong under the brand.
How packaging should feel.
What your photography communicates.
What your social content emphasizes.
Even which opportunities you say no to.
When those decisions are made independently, the brand ends up feeling inconsistent. Customers may like individual products, but they can’t develop a clear picture of what your company stands for.
Strong brands don't have to reintroduce themselves every time they launch something new. Customers already understand the bigger story.
From the Buyer's Side of the Table
One of the realities of selling into national retailers is that a buyer doesn't always have to buy your brand.
If they like the product but don't see enough value in the brand behind it, they'll often wonder whether it could work as a private label program instead.
I've seen it happen more than once and, on paper, it can feel like a win. Your product still makes it onto the shelf.
It's about whether the equity you're creating belongs to your company or to the retailer.
But you've traded something much bigger: the retailer owns the customer relationship.
They decide how it's marketed, promoted, and merchandised. Any momentum the product builds strengthens the retailer's brand, not yours.
You lose the opportunity to become the brand customers look for the next time they shop. You can't build recognition across retailers, support the product with your own marketing, or create a loyal following that extends beyond a single account.
A strong product can earn shelf space.
A strong brand earns recognition.
And over time, recognition becomes equity
It’s about whether the equity you’re creating belongs to your company or to the retailer.
Why this work is harder than it sounds
When a company is in a growth stage, it’s fair that they want to keep their options open:
A new retailer requesting a different style.
Customers asking for another category.
A trend that looks promising.
None of those opportunities are necessarily wrong.
The challenge is knowing whether they reinforce what your brand is becoming—or if they’re slowly pulling your brand in a different direction.
Without a clear idea of what the brand should mean, every opportunity can feel equally important.
Eventually, the assortment starts telling conflicting stories.
What I'm looking for
When I work with clients, I'm listening for consistency:
Can someone describe the brand in a sentence that's actually useful?
Do the products support that idea?
Does the packaging reinforce it?
Would a first-time customer have the same impression as a repeat customer?
Then I ask one question:
If you removed the logo from every product, would they still feel like they belonged to the same brand?
If the answer is no, don't see it as a problem to fix. See it as an invitation to become more intentional. It’s time to step back and find the common thread.
Where I usually come in
Often, I find that founders have the brand in their head, but it’s not all pieced together for the rest of the business to build on.
They know what they want customers to feel.
Their product team knows pieces of it.
Their designer sees another part.
Their sales team tells a slightly different story.
My role is helping turn those instincts into a clear brand strategy that guides decisions across products, channels, packaging, messaging, and future growth—so everyone is building toward the same idea.
Every strong brand is built through a series of decisions.
This series explores eight of the most important ones.
Once you've decided what your brand should mean, the next decision becomes much clearer: