How much does luxury brand strategy cost?

Every strategy we write is bespoke, so there is no price list. The investment reflects the size of the business and the questions it needs answered. We begin with a private consultation, and set out scope, investment and timeline in writing before any work begins.

What does a luxury brand strategy include?

A brand audit, positioning, audience definition, category analysis, brand narrative and messaging, tone of voice and brand architecture, with naming where it is needed. It is written as a single document your leadership team can use to make decisions. It is written to be used in real decisions, not filed.

Do we need brand strategy before a new identity?

In most cases, yes. With your position settled, every design decision can be judged on whether it serves the business rather than on personal preference, which makes the identity both stronger and quicker to agree. It also makes the identity quicker to agree, because everyone is judging it against the same written position.

Can brand strategy be commissioned on its own?

Yes. Some clients commission strategy to align a leadership team before a period of growth, or to brief their own designers and writers with real clarity. The result is a written strategy your team and suppliers can work from. It is scoped individually after a private consultation.

Yes. We name businesses, products, services and sub-brands, presenting a considered shortlist with the reasoning behind each, and recommend trademark searches through your legal advisers before a name is adopted. Each shortlisted name is tested for meaning, sound and how it sits beside your existing brand.

Should we rebrand or refresh?

It depends on how much recognition your brand already holds and how far the business has moved. Where clients know and value the brand, a refresh usually protects more than it costs. Where the brand actively holds you back, a new identity is the better investment. Strategy answers the question before any design begins.

When should a luxury brand rebrand?

When the business has changed beyond what its brand can carry: a new market, a new name, a merger, or a brand so dated it is costing you clients. Where clients still recognise and value the brand, a refresh usually serves better. Strategy decides which before any design begins, so the recognition you have earned is never given up by accident.

Who from our business needs to take part?

The founders and the few people who will make decisions about the brand. We keep the group small, because strategy written by committee tends to say nothing, and we plan their time around the business, with a few focused conversations rather than weeks of workshops.

How long does luxury brand strategy take?

A focused strategy typically takes three to five weeks. Strategy that includes naming or a complex brand architecture takes longer, and the timeline is agreed in writing before work begins, planned around the decisions your business is facing so the strategy arrives when it is needed.

Who leads our brand strategy project?

BCLR’s founders and Creative Directors, Beth Clawson and Leon Reeve, are present at every private consultation and set the creative direction of every project, so the people who first understand your business are the ones guiding the work through to the end. They remain your point of contact for every decision that shapes the work.

With a private consultation: an unhurried conversation about your business and what your brand must achieve, and a chance for us both to decide whether BCLR is the right fit. If it is, we follow with a written proposal setting out scope, investment and timeline. Request a private consultation.

Luxury brand strategy

For founders and leadership teams who need to know exactly who they serve, what they stand for and why they are chosen.

Request a private consultation

BRAND STRATEGY

Clients sense what a brand stands for long before they can explain it. BCLR defines the positioning, audience, name, narrative and voice of luxury businesses, so that every decision that follows, from the logo to the fee you quote, answers to something clear.

What is luxury brand strategy?

Luxury brand strategy is the work of deciding what a brand stands for, who it is for, what it refuses and how it should behave, before anything is designed. It covers positioning, audience, naming, narrative, tone of voice and brand architecture, written down so the whole business can act on it.

For you, it is the end of describing your business differently in every meeting. It gives you a sentence your team can repeat, a reason clients choose you that has nothing to do with price, and a test every future decision can be held against. Without it, design can only be judged on taste.

BCLR is a luxury branding studio serving London and the UK. Every BCLR project is led by our founders and Creative Directors, Beth Clawson and Leon Reeve, who are present at every private consultation. A focused strategy typically takes three to five weeks, and usually opens a brand identity or website project, though it can also be commissioned on its own.

Strategy and identity

Brand strategy or brand identity: which comes first?

Brand strategy

Strategy decides what your brand means: the position it holds, the clients it is for, the story it tells and the words it uses. It is invisible on its own, yet it is the reason every visible part of the brand looks and sounds the way it does.

Brand identity

Identity is how that meaning is seen and felt: the logo suite, typography, colour, imagery and materials. It is what clients notice first, and it is only as strong as the strategy it expresses.

Explore luxury brand identity design

Strategy comes first, because an identity built without a position can only ever be defended on taste.

The strategy

Every part of your luxury brand strategy and positioning

Each part is written down rather than left to instinct, so the people who carry your brand, inside the business and beyond it, are all working from the same page.

Brand audit

Before deciding where your brand should go, we look honestly at where it stands. We review every place a client meets you, from the website and proposals to signage and social channels, and show you what supports the business, what quietly undermines it and what is simply missing.

Brand positioning

Your position is the one idea a client should hold about you, stated plainly enough to guide real decisions. In luxury it is defined as much by refusal as by offer: the clients you will not chase, the discounts you will not give, the compromises you will not make. We help you find it and hold it.

Audience definition

Not everyone is your client, and the brand should know it. We define the people you want more of, how they make decisions, what they expect and what they will quietly refuse to tolerate, so every later choice is made with them in mind.

Category analysis

Every market has its conventions, and the brands that lead it know which to keep and which to ignore. We study the expectations your clients bring and the ground no one else occupies, so your brand can stand apart with confidence rather than by accident.

Brand naming

A name is the part of your brand clients say aloud, and it should feel inevitable once they have. We develop names for new businesses, products, services and sub-brands, test them for meaning, sound and availability, and present a considered shortlist with the reasoning behind each, ready for your legal advisers to clear.

Brand narrative and messaging

Your story should explain why the business exists without a single superlative. We write the narrative and the key messages that carry it, so founders, staff and partners describe you in the same way, in a proposal, on a website or across a dinner table.

Luxury brand tone of voice

How you write says as much as what you write. We define the register, vocabulary and rhythm of your brand, with examples of what it says and what it never says, so every email, proposal and caption sounds like the same considered business.

Proposition and price positioning

A luxury price is rarely defended in a negotiation; it is settled long before, by how the offer is framed. We define what you sell, how it is described and where it sits against the value you deliver, so your fees feel like a consequence of the brand rather than a number you have to justify.

Brand architecture

As a business grows, its services, products and sub-brands can drift into a crowd of unrelated names. We design how they relate to one another and to the parent brand, so every new offer strengthens what you have built rather than diluting it.

Refresh and rebrand strategy

When your brand needs to change, strategy decides how much. We weigh what clients already recognise and value against what holds the business back, and recommend a refresh, a considered evolution or a new identity, protecting the equity you have earned. Read when a luxury business should rebrand.

The process

How we shape your strategy together

I

Private consultation

An unhurried conversation about your business, where it is going and what your brand must achieve. It is as much for you to judge us as for us to understand you. If we are right for each other, you receive a written proposal with scope, investment and timeline.

II

Discovery

We listen to the founders and the few people who will make decisions about the brand, audit every touchpoint and study your clients and your market, until we understand the business as well as you do.

III

Positioning and narrative

We write your position, story and voice, then test them against real decisions the business is facing, because a strategy that cannot guide a decision is only a document.

IV

Presentation

Your strategy is presented to your leadership team, questioned and refined together, until everyone can describe the business in the same sentence.

V

Into the brand

The strategy becomes the brief for your identity, website and print, so the thinking is visible in everything the brand makes.

Selected work

Luxury brand strategy in practice

Brand strategy · Brand identity · Website

Endurance Limits

Endurance Limits carried a long record of achievement but nothing that spoke for it in a boardroom. The strategy presented the team as a high-performance endeavour with a defined purpose: a capital mission for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Cancer Centre. Sponsorship followed within a month of launch.

Discover more

“Within a month of launching our new identity, we secured sponsorship for our new project.”

Arron, Company Director, Endurance Limits

Where to begin

Where is your business today?

Every business arrives at a different moment. Find yours, and the right place to begin. Not sure which describes you? That is what the private consultation is for.

New ventures and start-ups

You are launching into a luxury market with no track record to lean on, and the brand must be believed from its first day. The positioning decided now shapes everything that follows.

Begin with brand strategy and a new identity

Established, heritage and family-run businesses

Your clients value what you have built and your name carries weight, yet the business has moved on and the brand has not. Strategy clarifies what to keep before anything is changed.

Begin with strategy, then a brand refresh

Dated brands and businesses in transition

The brand belongs to another era, or the business is changing shape: acquiring, merging or bringing several companies together under one name. Strategy decides what the new whole should stand for.

Begin with a rebrand, beginning with strategy

Luxury Brand Strategy questions

Every strategy we write is bespoke, so there is no price list. The investment reflects the size of the business and the questions it needs answered. We begin with a private consultation, and set out scope, investment and timeline in writing before any work begins.
A brand audit, positioning, audience definition, category analysis, brand narrative and messaging, tone of voice and brand architecture, with naming where it is needed. It is written as a single document your leadership team can use to make decisions. It is written to be used in real decisions, not filed.
In most cases, yes. With your position settled, every design decision can be judged on whether it serves the business rather than on personal preference, which makes the identity both stronger and quicker to agree. It also makes the identity quicker to agree, because everyone is judging it against the same written position.
Yes. Some clients commission strategy to align a leadership team before a period of growth, or to brief their own designers and writers with real clarity. The result is a written strategy your team and suppliers can work from. It is scoped individually after a private consultation.
Yes. We name businesses, products, services and sub-brands, presenting a considered shortlist with the reasoning behind each, and recommend trademark searches through your legal advisers before a name is adopted. Each shortlisted name is tested for meaning, sound and how it sits beside your existing brand.
It depends on how much recognition your brand already holds and how far the business has moved. Where clients know and value the brand, a refresh usually protects more than it costs. Where the brand actively holds you back, a new identity is the better investment. Strategy answers the question before any design begins.
When the business has changed beyond what its brand can carry: a new market, a new name, a merger, or a brand so dated it is costing you clients. Where clients still recognise and value the brand, a refresh usually serves better. Strategy decides which before any design begins, so the recognition you have earned is never given up by accident.
The founders and the few people who will make decisions about the brand. We keep the group small, because strategy written by committee tends to say nothing, and we plan their time around the business, with a few focused conversations rather than weeks of workshops.
A focused strategy typically takes three to five weeks. Strategy that includes naming or a complex brand architecture takes longer, and the timeline is agreed in writing before work begins, planned around the decisions your business is facing so the strategy arrives when it is needed.
With a private consultation: an unhurried conversation about your business and what your brand must achieve, and a chance for us both to decide whether BCLR is the right fit. If it is, we follow with a written proposal setting out scope, investment and timeline. Request a private consultation.