Most businesses reach a stage where they need to embrace transformation to grow – to correct course, reach new audiences or unify post-merger.

But as the figures repeatedly show, a huge number of transformations (nearly 90 per cent, according to Bain & Company in 2024) fail to achieve their original ambitions.

Too often transformation and growth falters because it focuses on the wrong things. True change isn’t about a new logo, a revised mission statement or a set of brand guidelines that gather dust. It happens when people truly see and play their role in reaching a tangible goal.

That’s where brand comes in. Brand isn’t just the visual identity of a business; it’s the glue that holds together purpose, culture, and strategy. It can help you grow transformation through the very culture of your organisation, to allow it to resonate with all, both in and outside your business.

Bringing brand and business strategy closer together isn’t just about a flashy announcement or event – you can’t tack on brand as an afterthought. In fact, the faster and more complex the change, the more important it is to bring brand and business close together.

Put your culture first

To do so effectively, start by thinking differently about the relationship between business and brand – your business strategy is about the coordinates, the rational and factual steps to chart growth. The brand strategy is the emotive energy that gets you there, the driver, the fuel.

For transformation to work everyone in the organisation needs to understand why you’re doing it, the purpose. However, purpose is often presented in a very dry, inaccessible way. A few sentences that have gone through so many committees of approvals that they’re boiled down to the lowest common denominators. Brand cuts through this, making purpose clear, relevant, engaging, and emotion driven.

For example, when we worked with New York’s Planting Fields Foundation, we worked through meaningful engagement with everyone from leadership to frontline staff. That allowed us to identify three simple yet profound organisational pillars, ‘For Nature. For History. For Life’, which then shaped everything from decision-making to day-to-day programme delivery. These words became a galvanising force, driving change through a shared understanding adopted at every level of the organisation, instead of relying on restrictive mandates and rules.

Facilitate buy-in through detail

That purpose then needs to run through all processes, communications and daily interactions. Buy-in isn’t about being able to recite your brand guidelines. It’s about understanding how your new principles inform day-to-day decision-making.

This can start with something as simple as people being asked to sign a pledge to build the business’ purpose into their everyday work. But you can also look further.

• What areas of your business can be optimised to help deliver against the wider brand and business strategy?
• What are you willing to invest in or sacrifice to realise this purpose?
• Are there internal processes that capture the new spirit of your business or are there new ways of working that could support a change in direction?

You need your structure to reflect change but also your processes to support it.

Use brand architecture to reflect meaning

Your brand architecture isn’t just a well-designed visual expression of your legal structure. It is the coalface of brand and business strategy, communicating your portfolio and demonstrating your offer clearly. It signals the extent and scale of an organisation, clarifies the relation between its different entities and allows you to prioritise the distinct brand equities within your business. Looking at structure through the lens of brand allows you to frame change in reality and figure out how it truly impacts stakeholders.

In our work to reposition and rebrand state-owned Etisalat to e&, brand played a huge role in supporting and strengthening the company’s ambitious evolution from national telecommunications to international technology business.

The brand process informed everything, from the holding company’s business structure to a new employee values proposition and symbolic new name. Ultimately, it helped e& become one of the strongest brands in the Middle East, according to Brand Finance.

Nurture a relationship between brand and business

Rather than relegating brand to a specific department or treating it as an afterthought, think of it more as an extension of your leadership. Its relationship with business should be symbiotic, to make transformation truly count and to embed brand ambassadorship at every corner of the organisation. It can be the crucial link between a business’ ambition and the way it’s perceived by its audiences.

That’s also why it needs full support from the very top. It has to be encouraged, endorsed and supported from the highest point in your business. Be vocal about it, build change into your everyday through brand – write it into your KPIs if you can.

Transformation succeeds when it’s rooted in clarity and shared purpose. By aligning brand and business strategy, you create a framework where change is not just implemented but understood and embraced. It’s about making the abstract tangible, connecting ambition to action, and strategy to culture. When brand becomes a tool for clarity and cohesion, transformation stops being a fleeting initiative and starts becoming a sustainable way forward.

Benji Wiedeman is co-founder and executive creative director at Wiedemann Lampe.

Read more on brand

Why brand is make or break for M&A success – Without a strong brand narrative, even the most promising M&A deal can falter, says Sally Bye, managing partner at Brandpie

How to use webinars to boost brand awareness – Webinars one of the easiest and most effective ways to get your message across and they are especially good for lead generation. This step-by-step guide will help you boost your brand awareness

3 ways to protect your online brand from cybersquatters – Lookalike companies stealing your online brand can be a problem, says Sarah Mountain. Follow these 3 simple steps to make sure you don’t get it wrong, like eBay and Gumtree