Strategy

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part of Brand Strategy · tier 1 · 0 pieces of work carry it · 4 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Brands hire strategy before making: to define the brand platform, sharpen positioning, plan the campaign and channel mix, and write the brief that focuses execution — brand launches, repositioning, campaign development, media planning.

The Strategy discipline (L1): the thinking craft that precedes and directs creative execution — defining what a brand stands for, whom it targets, and how a campaign or communications program should be shaped. Parent family of the strategy leaves: Brand Strategy, Creative Strategy, Media Strategy, Communications Planning, Campaign Strategy, Brand Positioning, Brand Architecture, Brand Naming, Employer Branding. Per canon §1, Strategy is BOTH axes — a Service a client buys and a Discipline whose leaves are the classify targets (Joe's resolved fork, 2026-07-11).

Tag it when…

Tag at L1 only as honest abstention (CM1): strategic craft is legibly present in or credited on the work, but the specific specialization (brand vs creative vs media vs comms vs campaign) cannot be determined. Prefer the leaf whenever the leaf is knowable.

Never tag it when…

Never tag merely because every commissioned piece implies a brief existed — strategy must be legible or credited, not assumed. Never tag the making crafts here (the writing goes to Copywriting, the identity system to Design, the film craft to Video Production). Never use genre, execution treatment, or content_type as the rule basis — a case-study video about strategy work is tagged for the strategy craft it documents, and its film crafts still get their own tags.

Easily mistaken for 4 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• Brand Strategy (L0 service, svc tier) — The L0 row is the sell-side offering/credit menu line — never a classify target (services-vs-craft boundary law); content tags the L1/L2 strategy rows only.
• strategy brand strategy — If the strategic craft is specifically brand-level platform work, use the leaf; L1 is abstention only.
• Market Research & Consumer Insights (L0 service) — Research produces the inputs (data, insight); Strategy makes the directional decisions from them. Research offerings live at the service/credit tier.
• content type / genre territory (branded content, case study, documentary) — What the piece IS — a case-study film, branded content, a documentary — is content-type/genre territory and never grounds a strategy craft tag; a case-study video about strategy work tags the strategy craft it documents AND its own film crafts.

At what size it applies

Effectively asset-grain: strategy is judged over the whole piece or deliverable — would you say the whole piece carries this craft, to a buyer? — never as a clip-able beat. A segment that merely states a claim is messaging/moment-shelf territory, not a strategy moment. L1-grain tags are legal here (CM1 honest abstention).

The 9 crafts inside it

• Brand Architecture — 0 pieces
• Brand Naming — 0 pieces
• Brand Positioning — 0 pieces
• Brand Strategy — 31 pieces
• Campaign Strategy — 0 pieces
• Communications Planning — 1 pieces
• Creative Strategy — 0 pieces
• Employer Branding — 0 pieces
• Media Strategy — 0 pieces

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.