Once you decide your business needs a brand strategy, the next question is who should do it. In Ireland, most SMEs end up choosing between three options: an independent consultant, a large agency, or a boutique agency. Each has strengths, and each has trade-offs worth understanding before you sign anything.
Option one: an independent brand consultant
A freelance brand strategist or positioning consultant can be a good fit for a tightly defined piece of thinking.
- Strengths: often very experienced, flexible and cost effective for a single project.
- Trade-offs: capacity is limited to one person, and when the strategy is finished you usually need to find someone else to deliver the website, PR or content. Things can get lost in that hand-off.
Option two: a large agency
Bigger agencies bring scale, specialist departments and the ability to run very large campaigns.
- Strengths: deep resources, a wide range of in-house skills and experience with major brands.
- Trade-offs: fees reflect the overheads, and smaller clients can find that the senior people at the pitch are not the people doing the work.
Option three: a boutique agency
A boutique agency sits between the two. It is small enough that senior people do the work, and broad enough to take the strategy all the way into delivery.
- Strengths: senior attention on every project, one plan from strategy through to website, search, PR and content, and fewer layers between you and the people doing the thinking.
- Trade-offs: a boutique agency will not have hundreds of staff, so very large or global campaigns may need a bigger partner.
For most growing Irish SMEs, the boutique model offers the best balance of senior thinking, joined-up delivery and sensible cost.
Where we stand: the strategy should not change hands
Our view is that the biggest risk in brand strategy is not a weak document. It is the handover. When one party writes the strategy and another delivers it, the reasoning behind each choice stays with the person who wrote it, and the work loses its edge.
That view comes from our own work. On AIB’s Backing Doing campaign with Kevin Kilbane, which won Best Digital Campaign at the AIMs, the same person led the brand strategy and managed the project, so the thinking and the delivery never separated.
A better way to compare
Most guides compare consultants and agencies on cost. We would compare them on the handover instead. Ask each option who will own the strategy six months after sign off. If the answer is nobody, the cheaper option is rarely the cheaper one.
Questions to ask any brand strategy partner
- Who exactly will work on my project, and how senior are they?
- What will I have at the end, in writing?
- How will the strategy turn into action across my website and marketing?
- Is the fee fixed, and what does it include?
- Can you show me work for businesses like mine, with real results?
Red flags to watch for
- A proposal that jumps straight to logos and visuals before understanding your customers.
- Vague deliverables, such as a workshop with no written output.
- No clear owner once the strategy is signed off.
- Results described only as awareness, with no link to enquiries or sales.
Bond and Barrel is a boutique, senior-led agency in Ratoath, Co. Meath. Our brand strategy and positioning work comes with a senior person on every project and a clear plan for what happens next. You can see examples on our work page.
Frequently asked questions
What does a brand positioning consultant do?
A brand positioning consultant helps a business define what makes it different, who it is for and how to say it clearly. The output is usually a positioning statement, messaging and guidance on how to use them.
Is a boutique agency more expensive than a freelancer?
Not always. A boutique agency may cost more than a freelancer for the strategy alone, but it can save time and money by delivering the website, PR and content from the same plan, without briefing several suppliers.
How do I know if an agency is senior led?
Ask who will attend the workshops, write the strategy and manage the work day to day. In a senior-led agency, the people you meet at the start are the people who do the work.
Choosing a partner for your brand strategy? Talk to us and we will tell you honestly if we are the right fit.