Brand Strategy: Service Definition

Overview

This document defines what LMC’s Brand Strategy service contains, how we deliver it, what the client receives, and how it is priced. It is the source of truth for sales conversations, contract drafting, and delivery scope.

Brand Strategy is the decision layer that sits before identity, content, and advertising. A fixed-scope project, one price, roughly 8 weeks. The output is a four-part document, a presentation, and a one-page Brand Card that execution people use daily. The service does not design logos and does not produce content.

What it is

Brand Strategy answers four questions in a fixed order. What the brand exists for, how that belief looks and sounds, who it is aimed at, and where it wins against competitors. The order is load-bearing, not a table of contents.

We produce:

• Part 01 - Brand core - story, purpose, vision, long-horizon goal, and the value set. Every value carries a negation alongside it.
• Part 02 - Personality, voice, and messaging - an 8-axis personality slider with scores, a 4-axis voice slider, a use-and-avoid word list, tagline, and three message pillars.
• Part 03 - Audience and personas - pains, needs, pre-purchase questions, and two personas with journey maps.
• Part 04 - Positioning - a two-axis matrix with named competitors, plus the decision on which squares to concede.

Brand Strategy is right for you if:

• You are about to commission an identity or a website and need the brand content settled before anyone starts drawing.
• Your team, freelancers, and creators are producing different versions of the brand because there is no shared document.
• You carry a range but have no coherent reason for a customer to buy the range rather than one product.

Three mechanisms make the document executable rather than merely readable: every positive claim carries a negation, and the negation must name a tactic a real competitor uses and profits from; every message pillar carries at least three verifiable proof points about formulation, materials, specifications, sourcing, or commitments; and every persona carries verbatim quotes from real customers, pulled from marketplace reviews and chat logs.

What it is not

This is a strategy service. It is not a design service, and it is not market research. These two boundaries are the largest source of scope disputes, so read the Out of scope section before you engage.

Brand Strategy is the wrong service if:

• You need a logo, palette, typography, or visual guidelines - that is Brand Identity, which runs afterwards using this document as its brief.
• You have not decided whether to enter this category or platform - that is Market Research.
• You need a full competitive map and a 90-day plan - the competitor review here is only deep enough to build a two-axis matrix; the full map is Market Research T2.
• You need someone writing content and running ads monthly - those sit inside the operations retainers.
• You need one urgent decision rather than the whole document - that is Advisory.

What we need from you

Three inputs determine output quality. Missing any of them, the service still runs, but the corresponding section rests on estimates and we state that plainly in the document rather than papering over it.

Process

Three intake rounds, one positioning confirmation, then cross-check and publication. Every round runs the same rhythm: LMC prepares, you complete a form, LMC reads it and asks follow-ups once, LMC drafts, you confirm on a single page.

There is no live discovery workshop. You complete the forms yourself and can split them across your team. If we need clarification we collect it into one list and ask once; past five questions we book a 20-minute call.

1. Round 1 - Brand core (weeks 1-2). We send the Brand DNA form with a 7-day deadline. You spend around 90 minutes. We draft the story, purpose, vision, long-horizon goal, and value set. You confirm on one page. First sign-off gate.
2. Round 2 - Personality and voice (weeks 3-4). We prepare first, including three sample paragraphs describing the same product in three different voices for you to choose between. You spend around 70 minutes. We draft personality, gender split, both sliders, the banned-word list, tagline, and short boilerplate.
3. Round 3 - Audience (weeks 5-6). We read 60 to 90 minutes of your own store’s reviews and chat logs before the form goes out. You spend around 60 minutes. We draft Part 03 and lock the three message pillars at this step, once there is a pain list to check them against.
4. Positioning (weeks 6-7). We spend 3 to 5 hours reviewing competitors and building the matrix: setting axes, plotting 4 to 6 competitors by real product name, plus the no-brand option. You spend 20 minutes deciding which squares to concede. Second sign-off gate.
5. Cross-check and publication (week 8). We run 14 consistency checks across all four parts, then build the three output projections and hand off to your execution team.

Two rules govern the pace. The next round’s form does not go out until you have responded to the previous round’s one-pager, because the front of each form is the prior part’s confirmation table. And any box we cannot answer is marked as a gap rather than invented - a gap is a finding, and it produces a scoped follow-up question.

Part 02 does not finish in Round 2. The three message pillars are only locked in Round 3. This is the point clients most often misread as the document being further along than it is.

Deliverables

What you receive:

• Full Brand Strategy document - four parts, written, and the master from which every other projection is built.
• Presentation, 18 to 24 pages - one assertion per page, for internal meetings and board review.
• One-page Brand Card - Vietnamese and English, versioned, dated, and signed off by name. This is the projection designers, copywriters, and freelancers use daily.
• Positioning matrix - competitors named by real product, plus the no-brand option.
• Four one-page round confirmations - two of which are formal sign-off gates.
• The 14-check consistency table - run and attached, evidencing that the four parts hold together as one argument.
• Handoff session - walking your execution team through how to use the document.

Everything lives in a client-specific Google Drive folder and you retain access.

Four things are never compressed in any projection: the opposition pairs, the proof points, the positioning matrix, and the 8-axis personality slider.

Price

One price, fixed scope. GM-locked and quoted in VND.

Payment terms: 50% on signature, 30% on Part 01 sign-off, 20% on handoff. The two later milestones align exactly with the process sign-off gates.

Revision rounds: each part includes one revision round, carried inside that round’s one-page confirmation. Changing Part 01 or Part 04 after sign-off is new work and is quoted separately, because everything downstream is built on those two parts.

Pause clause: the 8-week schedule assumes you return each form within 7 days. No response for more than 14 days in any round moves the engagement to paused, and it restarts on a new schedule. Paused beyond 90 days, the competitor review must be re-run because the data has gone stale.

No credit against later services. Market Research carries that mechanic because research is a cost incurred ahead of a decision. Brand Strategy delivers an asset you keep and use long-term, whether or not you continue with LMC.

Periodic review is a separate project. We recommend revisiting the document every 6 months, or sooner on any of these signals: a major competitor enters or exits the category, pricing shifts by more than 20%, a new product line does not fit the existing structure, or your measured customer gender split moves more than 15 points. Review is not included in the base price.

One project equals one brand. Multi-brand companies commission one project per brand. Merging two brands into one document produces averaged personality scores and a meaningless positioning matrix.

All prices exclusive of VAT.

How it connects to the rest of LMC

Brand Strategy is a-la-carte and stands on its own, but its output is the input to nearly every other service.

The document is yours. It hands off cleanly to any later team, in-house or external.

Out of scope

• Brand identity. Logo, brand mark, palette, typography, art direction, and identity guidelines are not part of this service. That is Brand Identity, which runs afterwards and takes this document as its brief.
• Market-entry decisions. No verdict on whether to enter a category, no 90-day plan, no full competitive map. That is Market Research.
• Primary consumer research. No surveys, focus groups, or interviews with your customers. Personas are built from data that already exists: marketplace reviews, chat logs, support tickets, platform data, plus founder interviews. Anything LMC constructs rather than sources is labelled as such.
• Execution. The document is the input for identity briefs, content pillars, storefront copy, ad creative briefs, packaging copy, and CS tone guidance. The service itself produces none of those.
• Brand naming and multi-brand architecture. Naming, renaming, and designing a multi-brand structure under one parent sit outside default scope and are quoted separately.
• Trademark registration and legal advice. Clearance searches, filings, and infringement action are not part of this service. Pre-launch IP risk assessment is Brand Protection; legal counsel belongs with a law firm.
• Live discovery workshops. The working rhythm is self-completed forms. An on-site workshop is a different scope and is quoted separately.
• Business outcome guarantees. The document does not guarantee revenue, market share, or brand awareness metrics. It guarantees a coherent argument that has passed 14 consistency checks and is detailed enough to execute from.

How to engage

1. Book a 30-minute scoping call - free. We confirm this is the service you need and spell out the three inputs to have ready.
2. Receive scope of work and quote. Fixed price at 65,000,000 VND. The engagement begins on signature and the first 50% payment.
3. Round 1 form goes out within 2 business days of signature, with a 7-day response window.
4. Three intake rounds and the positioning round run over roughly 7 weeks, each ending in a one-page confirmation.
5. Handoff - full document, presentation, bilingual Brand Card, and a walkthrough session for your execution team.