the Let’s Canoe Framework™

Our brand strategy framework

A five-phase process for brand strategy work, built on one principle.

The principle

We start by assuming the better answer hasn’t been found yet.

Call it the cognitive engine, and it runs through every phase of the Framework.

Before we sketch a logo or write a line of positioning, we’re working from one belief: the right answer to a growth problem isn’t sitting in the brief. It’s somewhere in the wider space of what’s possible, and our job is to go find it.

Most agencies treat the brief as the boundary of the work. We treat it as the starting line. The brief tells us where the client thinks the problem is. Our job is to find where the problem actually lives, and to surface answers the client didn’t think to ask for.

You can see it in the day-to-day. We ask what this could be before we ask what this has to be. We run one creative pass with no constraints, then a second pass with the budget in the room. The team works through the possibilities together, then brings the strongest ideas back into a project that still has to fit the scope, schedule, and cost.

The result is work that goes past the brief: an identity that names something the brand couldn’t name about itself, positioning with a sharper frame than the one the client walked in with, and messaging that’s true to the business and still new to the market.

That’s the cognitive engine, and there are five phases that run on top of it; together, they make up our framework.

“The world is abundant with ideas & solutions. Half the work is just remembering that, and refusing to settle for whatever was already in front of us.”

— Brian Murnion, Co-Founder & Director of Strategy

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Our process

The five phases

Brand strategy work moves through five phases. Each has its own focus, outputs, and role in the arc of the engagement. The phases run in order, but they aren’t sealed off from each other. What we learn late can send us back to sharpen earlier work.

01

Discovery

We dig in: audits, interviews, content reviews, data crawls, competitor and customer research, and stakeholder conversations. Everything that follows has to be earned by what we find here.

02

Positioning

We turn the findings into decisions: where the brand sits, who it serves, what it stands for, and what it says no to. This is where the engagement becomes a real strategy.

03

Identity

The visual system built on the positioning: logo, type, color, and the design language that ties them together. We change a logo only when the strategy shows it’s needed.

04

Brand narrative

The brand’s voice and story: how it sounds when it speaks, and what it talks about. The part that keeps every message coherent, no matter who’s writing it.

05

Activation system

The brand book, asset library, application guidelines, and rollout roadmap. The system that keeps the strategy running after we leave the room.

Why brand strategy compounds

Brand strategy is what makes a business compound. The work happens once. From there, every campaign, every hire, every product, and every customer interaction starts from the same foundation, and each one gets easier than the last.

Without that foundation, businesses spend without building. The marketing runs, the team grows, the product line extends, and nothing accumulates. That’s the difference between a business that adds and one that compounds.

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Researching

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Evaluating

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Specific project

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Anna and Brian Murnion, co-founders & owners

Built and led by the team at Let’s Canoe

Every brand strategy engagement we run is led by Brian Murnion, our chief strategist and co-founder, with the team carrying the work alongside him. We take on a limited number of engagements each quarter, because the framework only produces what it should when the senior people doing the thinking are the same ones delivering the work.

Read more about the team →

Common framework questions

Questions about the framework and how an engagement runs. For broader questions about brand strategy, see the brand strategy page, or book a free fit call.

The framework

What is a brand strategy framework?
A brand strategy framework is the repeatable process a brand uses to decide what it stands for, who it serves, and how it shows up. It turns scattered opinions into decisions the whole business can work from. Ours runs in five phases: discovery, positioning, identity, brand narrative, and an activation system that holds it together.
What is the Let’s Canoe Framework?
The Let’s Canoe Framework is our brand strategy methodology, the process behind every engagement we run. Five phases, built on one principle: the better answer to a brand problem hasn’t been named yet, and our job is to find it. The brand strategy service is where the framework runs.
What is the principle behind the framework?
We start by assuming the better answer hasn’t been named yet. Most agencies treat the brief as the boundary of the work. We treat it as the starting line, then go find answers the client didn’t think to ask for. It shapes every phase: we ask what something could be before we ask what it has to be.
What makes your brand strategy process different?
The same senior people who scope the work do the work, so the thinking and the output come from one team. We also treat the brief as a starting line and keep working past it, which is how the work ends up somewhere the client wouldn’t have thought to ask for. Most agencies hand the thinking to seniors and the delivery to juniors. We don’t.

Phases and delivery

What are the five phases of the framework?
Discovery, positioning, identity, brand narrative, and activation. Discovery digs into the business, market, and audience. Positioning turns those findings into decisions. Identity is the visual system built on the positioning. Brand narrative gives the brand its voice and story. The activation system pulls everything into a working kit your team can run without us in the room.
Do the phases have to run in order?
They run in order, but they aren’t sealed off. What we learn in a later phase can send us back to sharpen an earlier one. Positioning can surface a gap that sends us back into discovery. That’s the work improving, not the process breaking.
What does each phase of the framework produce?
Each phase ends with something real. Discovery gives you the audience, market, and competitive picture. Positioning sets the core decisions: where the brand sits, who it serves, and what it stands for. Identity is the visual system. The brand narrative covers voice, story, and messaging. Activation delivers the brand book and asset library your team works from after the engagement ends.
Who runs a brand strategy engagement?
The senior people you meet at the start. Every engagement is led by Brian Murnion, our chief strategist and co-founder, with the team working alongside him. We take a limited number of engagements each quarter on purpose, because the framework only works when the people doing the thinking are the same ones delivering the output.