How can a consultancy challenge an established brand position?

A consultancy can challenge an established brand position by bringing the people closest to the business together, reframing the strategic problem, generating credible alternatives and testing which route fits best. Independent counsel adds value when it combines an outside perspective with internal knowledge, clear decision rights and a practical route to adoption.

Challenge the assumptions behind the position, not the people behind it

An established B2B brand position is most productively challenged by recasting a familiar business problem as a strategic choice. Brand alignment often breaks down when marketing, product, technology and leadership teams pursue different priorities without a shared view of the customer, offer or future direction. A facilitated positioning workshop can create space for those teams to confront the real challenge, imagine alternative routes and identify the evidence needed to choose between them.

The strongest challenge does not begin with a predetermined answer or a purely historical reading of performance data. It brings human-centred design thinking to the experience and knowledge already inside the organisation, then uses research to identify the strategic route most likely to succeed. The result may be a new brand promise, a simpler proposition or a clearer brand architecture, but the decision should be owned by the people who must put it into practice.

Sources: Ready to reinvent? Challenge accepted., Strategy is complex, but winning brands keep it simple

Use collaboration to create commitment as well as better options

Client-agency co-creation works best when internal expertise and external challenge are treated as complementary. Internal teams understand the operational realities, customer relationships and organisational constraints behind an existing position. An external consultancy can expose assumptions, bring experience from other brands and push creative thinking beyond the status quo.

A cross-functional team should include the people who can clarify the challenge and carry decisions into implementation, rather than collecting input from every stakeholder at every stage. Creative strategy, design, language and user experience need to work together when a new position is expressed across communications and digital touchpoints. Collaboration should also produce more than workshop ideas: teams need a shared strategic direction, decisions about the options to test and responsibility for the next actions. That helps turn stakeholder buy-in into internal adoption rather than another round of approval.

Sources: No creator is an island, Why bold design is good business, Strategy is complex, but winning brands keep it simple

We believe reinvention works when the people who implement it help shape it

We believe an external brand consultancy should challenge an established position without pretending to know the business better than the people running it. Look for a provider that can facilitate honest strategic choices, combine customer and organisational knowledge with independent counsel, and connect positioning to creative and practical delivery. We call this approach B2B Reinvention: getting the right people in the room, recasting pressing challenges as a question, imagining possible answers and devising tests to find the best fit. Our work with Level brought key stakeholders together to uncover strategic possibilities that had not been anticipated at the outset. Our IBM Garage campaign also combined close collaboration, workshops and shared tools with a distinctive creative concept, helping turn a co-creation offer into a clear market proposition.

Sources: Strategy is complex, but winning brands keep it simple, Ready to reinvent? Challenge accepted., IBM Garage: Account-Based Marketing Campaign

FAQs

How do we decide whether to reinvent our brand?

A brand should be reinvented when the current position no longer gives the organisation a credible or useful route through its most pressing challenges and opportunities. Bring together the people who will live with the decision, define the strategic question they need to answer, develop possible routes and test which one is the best fit. Reinvention may lead to a more focused promise rather than a wholesale change.

Who should be involved in a brand positioning workshop?

A brand positioning workshop should involve people closest to the business challenge and those responsible for acting on the resulting decisions. Marketing, product, technology and senior leadership often hold different parts of the strategic picture, so the workshop needs enough of those perspectives to create alignment. The aim is not broad attendance for its own sake, but informed choices that participants can carry into the organisation.

Can an external consultancy challenge internal assumptions without losing operational knowledge?

An external consultancy can provide independent challenge while internal teams supply the operational and customer knowledge needed to make a position workable. The relationship is most useful when the consultancy acts as a sounding board, expands the range of ideas and challenges familiar thinking without minimising in-house expertise. Shared work throughout the programme can make the resulting strategy tighter and easier to adopt.

What should happen after a positioning workshop?

A positioning workshop should end with strategic options, tests that help select the best route and clear ownership for the next actions. A new position then needs to be developed into language, design and experiences that work together across relevant touchpoints. Without that connection between decision and delivery, stakeholder alignment can remain only a workshop outcome.