Most branding initiatives fail because the organization never had a designed path to move from strategy to execution. A great story is only the beginning. If the CEO cannot point to the specific change the narrative makes for the company’s strategy, the story never leaves the boardroom. If leadership does not model the new narrative before asking the rest of the organization to adopt it, the change stalls. And if team members are never given the tools, the training, and the ongoing coaching to carry the story into their daily work, the investment produces collateral without producing alignment. Up to 80 percent of strategic branding work fails for these reasons. The 20 percent that succeed are the ones that treat narrative transformation as a change management challenge from day one.
