Objective setting is an important strategic exercise. That’s why Mark Ritson dedicates a whole module to it on the MiniMBA in Brand Management.
Brands who set clear, measurable objectives tend to have better business outcomes. And once you understand the strategic role of brand objectives, it’s easy to see why.
Brand objectives exist to force choice and focus resource. However, their power is lost when they’re muddied together with broader business goals and tactical activity.
Understanding where objectives come from, where objectives fit within brand strategy and how to write brand objectives that set direction is a crucial part of the brand management puzzle.
What are brand objectives?
A brand objective is, simply, an expression of what a brand is trying to do. Not a generic target or catch-all ambition, but a measurable target that is selected after creating and analysing your custom purchase funnel.
Unlike generic, off-the-shelf funnel templates like AIDA or TOFU/BOFU, a custom purchase funnel will show – with great accuracy – where the biggest problems and opportunities lie.
We can then turn some of those opportunities into brand objectives, using funnel data, bridge analysis and competitor insights to understand which few will deliver the greatest business impact.
If our ultimate goal as brand managers is to get more consumers through our funnel, objective setting is about deciding which parts of the funnel we are going after in a given cycle.
Custom funnel building is central to getting objectives right. Brands who skip this step will set objectives that are, at best, not strategic. At worst, counterproductive or even damaging.
For a quick run down of the steps involved, read: “Stop using generic funnels – here’s how to build your own”.
Where do objectives fit within brand strategy?
Objectives are the final chapter of strategy. We set our objectives for the year once we have defined our strategic play, but before we make any tactical decisions.
By this point in the process, we’ve finished our brand research, and should be clear on our target market, positioning and brand codes.
“The danger,” says Mark Ritson, “is it starts to feel like we pretty much know what we’re doing. We’re going after this person with this message and these codes…
“The missing piece in the puzzle is objectives. We don’t actually know what we want to do with that target customer.
“I know who they are and I know what my message is, but what am I trying to get them to do? To buy and become loyal to my brand, sure, but what’s the right strategic lever to pull in order to get them there?”
I know who they are and I know what my message is, but what am I trying to get them to do?
Brand objectives must answer this question at a brand level – i.e. not a broad business ambition, but not so specific that we’re getting into tactics.
A good foothold is to think about where your brand objectives ultimately sit within the different levels of a business.
Brand managers don’t set business strategy. And so those aspirational goals that we get from upstairs – grow, lead the category, reverse declining revenue – are useful as a direction of travel, but we can’t take them wholesale and apply them as brand strategy.
A brand objective is about what levers the brand team can pull to get the business closer to that “endgame aspiration,” says Mark.
Equally, if the teams doing all the different tactical work had no guidance from the brand manager, chances are they’d all be working towards different, unconnected goals.
Your brand objective is the macro goal that drives lots of micro tactical goals later on.
What brand objectives are NOT
In any business, you will hear objectives, OKRs, goals, missions, metrics and KPIs banded around interchangeably. That only becomes a problem when we, as brand managers, lose sight of what we mean when we set and talk about brand objectives.
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Objectives are not sales or profit goals
Avoid objectives that are about sales or generating revenue, warns Mark Ritson. E.g. ‘Increase sales from $800k to $950k by Dec 31.’
“That’s not strategic, it’s just a financial objective. And there’s no sense of how we’re actually going to get there,” he says.
“That’s a bit like a football coach getting his team together at the start of the big game and telling them: our strategy is to win the game.”
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Objectives are not descriptions of activity
Objectives are not what you will do as a marketer or brand manager, but about what you will ultimately do to the consumer.
If you find yourself talking about specific channels or tools (e.g. ‘deliver ESOV of +10% this year’), you’ve descended into tactical thinking too soon.
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Brand objectives are not brand metrics
While a brand objective is often expressed in familiar metrics like awareness and consideration, the two are very different things. Brand objectives set direction. Brand metrics measure progress.
Brand tracking is a key part of brand management. It can help us understand what’s behind the holes in our funnel, or flag external issues and opportunities. But it can’t replace the strategic function of objective setting. First, we set the destination. Then we measure progress towards it.
How to actually set brand objectives
Like all strategic tools, brand objectives work best by being select and succinct. We must be ruthless in choosing only the few objectives that can give us the greatest impact. According to Effie data, the magic number seems to be between two and four objectives at one time.
Within those two to four, you should have both long and short objectives. Top of funnel targets that tackle awareness and consideration, as well as some shorter-term product-based objectives.
These should be expressed as SMART objectives (or your company’s preferred framework), but most importantly, they should give us direction.
Most importantly, they should give us direction
Let’s say you’re a SaaS company seeing low subscription renewals or rollout. ‘Increase renewals from 20% to 50% by December 31st’ is not a strategic objective, because it doesn’t tell us anything about how to get there.
By analysing our custom funnel, though, we might begin to understand that we’re losing people between purchase and re-purchase because they are not engaging with onboarding features.
And so, a better objective, derived from the purchase funnel, could be: ‘Increase demo engagement from 20% of new customers to 50% of new customers by December 31st.’
Even with a top of funnel goal that seems simple – improving brand awareness – a brand objective gives that goal hard benchmarks and strategic direction:
‘Increase unaided awareness of our brand among the total market from 6% to 10% by Dec 31st.’
This tells us who we’re targeting (mass market), what we’re trying to do (pure awareness), and provides a realistic projection of how far we think we can move the dial, based on internal data and market research.
This objective can now guide future tactical decisions around budget, channels and creative execution.
Without objectives … improvement is accidental
Without objectives, you might end the reporting period in a better place than you started. But you’ll never know whether that was the best use of time and budget. Improvement is accidental.
Done properly, objectives are the glue that holds everything together: your consumer research, your strategy and every tactical decision you’ll make as you execute it.
In Module 7: Brand Objectives of the MiniMBA in Brand Management, Mark Ritson demonstrates how brand objectives are set in context – from building and diagnosing the funnel through to choosing the few objectives that actually matter.
Find out more about the MiniMBA in Brand Management, or sign up for the next course here.
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