The second stage is straight forward and built entirely from the first.

It's simply correcting and aggregating all of the information at first stage and

compiling it into a unique document.

We call this the brand strategy document.

A brand strategy document is broken up into two halves like chapters.

The first half is called discovery.

That's all the information that we've collected.

It's not a bad idea to rename or

reword some of these thoughts to let your client know that you are listening and

can reconfigure the message without losing any key points.

Our outline of this first half covers a Summary, Perceptions of the current brand.

Brand architecture, Etymology of the name, Values,

Word mapping, Audience, and Competitive research.

Each section is self-explanatory and is optional.

If you find content that should fit in your document, by all means, include it.

Be sure it reflects either yourself, the project, or the client.

In the second half of the brand strategy document,

we take all the information distill it, and create what we call the direction.

This half is a little shorter, and

contains a creative brief, tagline proposals if necessary, and a mood board.

The creative brief is the keystone to the direction of the project.

The creative brief will combine thoughts from word mapping with research about

the audience, and competitors.

The creative brief should include a summary of the client,

a summary of yourself or your agency, an overview of the project, and

an estimation of how to successfully complete the project.

Let this be specific enough to understand, but

vague enough that you aren't putting up unnecessary design walls.

One paragraph can be fine if you see fit.

Three paragraphs is also fine as long as the message is clear and digestible.

I include the creative brief as one of the first few slides of our presentation

to continue to reiterate the importance of its message.

Once this document looks pretty and

it's been proof read several times it's time to send it off.

Some things deserve to be presented, and some things can fit in a simple email.

the brain strategy document will probably be pretty wordy.

So email is best.

If you can talk to your client on regular basis, you can give them a few days

to read over it before getting their feedback and starting.

As a side note on presentation, presentation is everything.

If you work tirelessly and endlessly on a project and

only present a small amount of work, your client is going to think you

only spent a small amount of time on it, and not understand the value of your time.

Create presentations that matter.

Presentations that explains thoughts and engaged in concepts.

These presentations will show that depth of your thinking and value of your time.

And allow you to charge more.