Brands and their campaigns aren’t crashing and burning launch after launch because markets are tough, though they are. They’re failing because the safeguards that once protected them have been stripped away.
Somewhere along the way, brand development lost its self-correcting process, sacrificed to speed and budget cuts. What was once disciplined stewardship for holding a brand in check as it came into itself has been benched for launching untested ideas that disrupt rather than connect.
And it shows: wasteful, costly, divisive, embarrassing. Every one of the brand disasters we’ve watched play out could have been avoided if only a process had protected the brand.
Brand building should not be a threat. The process should be the shield.
Every phase of development ought to test, confirm, or correct the strategy in the making.
Creativity Without Process = Crisis
Brand work is not a creative exercise at its foundation. It’s technical, accountable, and methodical, with benchmarks designed to pressure-test assumptions before they become decisions.
Some argue that a rigorous process hinders creativity or reduces brand-building to committee work. The absurdity of that thinking trades discipline today for catastrophe tomorrow, with the market watching.
Social scientists, behavioral economists, and branders all work with the same fuzzy logic. The difference is that scientists and economists would never phase out the validity checks that protect the process at every step.
Why? Because without confirmation of the emerging picture, decisions and outcomes are just as likely to be wrong as to be right. Without accountability phased into the brand process, you’re opening the door to crisis.
Developing a brand is an intention to humanize business, to tell the story of a company shaped by its ideals, perspective, and unique strengths.
The goal is to turn the company inside out so it can speak directly to markets and people, fans and segments, buyers and cohorts, who are listening for something that speaks their language, meets their needs, and reflects their view of the world.
When that brand is mismanaged, the damage is real.
The fallout is human and far-reaching:
A refreshed brand should be the force driving momentum, but mismanaged it becomes a costly liability. Any money saved on a quick turnaround without proper discovery pales next to the price of the fallout. Reduce a brand to advertising and you gut your most valuable asset, turning the soul of the company into empty promises nobody buys.
Guarding is not an afterthought. Guarding is the point.
Every brand initiative should begin with a clear statement of intent: raise capital, sell, expand, align after a merger, or modernize. From that foundation comes the single most important tool in brand protection: the Scorecard.
The Scorecard is not bureaucracy. Done well, it is the living instrument that forces accountability and ensures the brand is built on substance, not fluff.
It:
Without it, teams improvise, leaders gamble, and brands spin off course before they hit their stride.
Developing a brand is strategic. After all, it is identity, purpose, direction, differentiation. It is a business asset. It shouldn’t be left to chance
To matter, to move markets, and to last, a brand requires a rigorous process that engages creativity. Creativity is the wedding dress, not the bride. Creativity is the sail, not the ship. Without process, creativity is the problem.
Protecting the brand means every rebrand starts with an outcome, moves with discipline, and stays accountable through a Scorecard that tests power, likability, fit, and cohesion.
Guarding isn’t optional. Guarding is the work.
Next in this series: Who is assigned to protect the brand.
We’ll introduce the “10th man” role and the red/blue team strategy—the critical voices, contrarians, and outsiders who challenge assumptions and pressure-test decisions before they hit the market.
Because no brand was ever meant to be built without people—real people—tasked with guarding it.