Think Different.
Just Do It.
Turn your money into something greater.
Let there be change.
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Helping business flow.
At first glance, these all feel like classic brand taglines. But dig a little deeper and they aren’t. They’re all solving different communication problems. And this, I believe, is where the branding industry often gets itself into a bit of a muddle.
Over the last 25 years I’ve worked on enough branding projects to know that we love our terminology: Positioning. Proposition. Purpose. Promise. Brand Essence. Mission. Vision. Organising Idea. Big Brand Idea. And depending on which agency or consultancy you speak to, one of these will inevitably be presented as the answer.
The trouble is, they’re all answers to different questions.
And I’ve been guilty of making the same mistake.
Like many strategists, I became a huge advocate for the power of the Organising Idea.
And it’s hard not to.
Apple’s Think Different, Nike’s Just Do It, Tesco’s Every Little Helps, Accenture’s Let there be change. These aren’t just brand taglines. They’ve helped shape how those businesses think, behave and make decisions.
So understandably, I started looking for an Organising Idea in almost every branding project I worked on. But, and this is the problem, not every business needs an Organising Idea.
Which is something I’ve learnt the hard way.
Looking back, I’ve delivered projects where the strategy itself wasn’t wrong, but the diagnosis was. One client really needed a clearer customer proposition. Another wanted a clearer internal brand essence. Another simply needed a better way of explaining what they actually did.
Now I should point out that these clients didn’t articulate the specific output they needed most – that should have been my job. But somewhat foolhardily, I just went straight to the power of an Organising Idea as a cure to all ills.
But as these projects began to unravel, it made me realise that we’d started with the wrong question.
So instead of diving headfirst into: “We need an Organising Idea” Or: “We need a brand purpose” Or just simply: “This is a classic positioning challenge”. I now prefer to start somewhere much simpler by asking the question:
“What communication problem does this brand need to solve”
Every brand is fighting three battles
Strip away the branding terminology and I believe every brand is trying to win three communication battles.
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Be understood.
Can people quickly answer the basics? Who are you? What do you do? Why should I care?
For many businesses, particularly specialist B2B companies, this can be the number one challenge for their brand. Take Sage and “Helping business flow.”
It’s not trying to win awards for killer copywriting. It’s reducing ambiguity.
Likewise Moneybox and “Turn your money into something greater.”
Simple. Clear. Easy to understand.
Both lines immediately help you understand what kind of business you’re dealing with.
Sometimes clarity is the strategy.
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Be remembered.
Once people understand you, will they remember you tomorrow?
Thanks to Byron Sharp, we know that brands grow by building mental availability, becoming easy to think of in buying situations. Ries and Trout talked about something similar decades earlier through positioning. Different language but the same destination: If people don’t remember you, they probably won’t choose you.
That’s why lines like Think Different, Just Do It, and By Your Side, have become so powerful.
They’re not trying to explain the basics of what they do. They’re building distinctive memory structures in the minds of their audience.
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Be believed.
Being understood and being remembered are worthless if customers don’t believe the promise, or if your employees don’t deliver it. This is where brand experience catches up with brand strategy. It’s where “a promise made” becomes “a promise kept.” And it’s also why the very best Organising Ideas are so powerful. They don’t just shape communications, they shape behaviour.
Apple’s Think Different doesn’t just tell customers what Apple believes in. It also quietly tells employees how they’re expected to think and behave. And the same for Nike and Just Do It, Tesco and Every Little Helps.
The Wembley Test
Here’s a simple exercise I often find myself coming back to.
Imagine you’ve bought one advertising board around Wembley Stadium.
Millions of people are going to see it.
You have three seconds before the next ad flashes up.
What do you write?
If you’re Apple … Think Different. Perfect.
If you’re McDonald’s … I’m Lovin’ It. Job done.
Nobody needs reminding what either company sells. They’re reinforcing memory, not creating understanding.
But imagine you’re a specialist engineering business.
Would you write: “Engineering tomorrow”?
Perhaps. But would anyone know what you actually do? Probably not.
Equally, you could write: “Manufacturing precision aerospace components.”
It’s much clearer, but also completely forgettable.
The best answer will sit somewhere between the two.
Ronseal’s legendary Does exactly what it says on the tin is a brilliant example. It isn’t trying to be poetic, it’s removing uncertainty.
Accenture’s Let there be change sits at the other end of the spectrum. It says almost nothing about consulting. Instead, it provides an idea capable of attracting prospects, reassuring clients, inspiring employees, and organising the business around a clear, shared ambition.
Neither approach is better.
They’re simply solving different communication problems.
Not everyone is Apple
This is perhaps the biggest mistake we make in branding.
We look at Apple, Nike or Patagonia and assume every business needs the same kind of brand idea. But most don’t.
A specialist manufacturer. A professional services business. A SaaS platform. A fintech challenger. They all have different communication challenges.
Take AO as an example.
Most of us are familiar with their memorable mnemonic “AO Let’s Go.”
Less well known, however, is the line it often uses alongside it: “The destination for electricals.”
Different message. Different job. One builds memory. The other builds understanding. Together they create a much stronger communication system than either could achieve alone.
The Royal Navy is another great example.
“Born in Basildon. Made in the Royal Navy.”
The place name changes, but the idea doesn’t. So it’s not really a strapline at all. It’s a communication platform. A framework capable of generating hundreds of stories while consistently reinforcing the same positioning.
You could argue “it’s just an ad campaign”. I’d argue it’s smart branding.
Maybe we’ve become obsessed with naming the outputs
Our industry spends a remarkable amount of time debating the differences between purpose, positioning, proposition, promise and organising ideas. But clients don’t buy any of those things. They’re trying to solve business problems. They need customers to understand them. Employees to believe in them. Prospects to remember them.
Sometimes the answer is an Organising Idea. Sometimes it’s a clearer proposition. Sometimes it’s a brand essence. Sometimes it’s simply a much better explanation of what the business actually does.
The point is that the solution should follow the diagnosis, not the other way around.
The biggest shift in my own thinking has been to move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to brand strategy and positioning development. I no longer believe every branding project needs that killer Organising Idea – it simply needs the right communication system.
Now of course, there are examples where one killer line really can do everything. But more often, it can’t. The best brands use different messages to perform different jobs. Some create understanding. Some create memory. Some create belief.
But together, they build brands that grow.
So the next time you embark on a branding project, don’t start by assuming you just need a proposition, promise, purpose or Organising Idea. Start by asking three much simpler questions.
What do people need to understand?
What do people need to remember?
What do people need to believe?
Because once you’ve answered those questions, delivering a truly effective brand strategy suddenly becomes much simpler.
