The right time to think about brand strategy is before the market forces the issue.

There's a pattern to how brand strategy gets commissioned. Something shifts in the market, growth stalls, or a competitor makes a move that's hard to ignore. The brief arrives under pressure.

The alternative is to get ahead of it — to treat brand strategy as preparation for the market a business is moving into, rather than a response to the one it's already in.

The work has value either way. But the conditions in which it happens change what's possible.