25/05/2026
Brand strategy is a CEO decision before it is a CMO ex*****on.
Most Indian companies get this backwards. They hand brand to marketing, fund twenty campaigns a year, and wonder why pricing power keeps slipping every quarter.
Brand sits on the P&L. It decides pricing power, pipeline quality, retention, and the cost of every sales conversation. When boards delegate it entirely to marketing, brand becomes spend that does not compound.
I audited the patterns across enterprise brand engagements. Five mistakes show up almost every time.
1. Activity over clarity
2. Borrowed positioning. 15 to 30 percent of category margin, gone
3. The CMO solo trap
4. Vanity metrics
5. A brand book mistaken for a brand strategy
The fifth is the one that compounds. A brand book documents identity. A brand operating system governs decisions. One sits in a drawer. The other runs the business.
A BFSI client lived this. Seven quarters of flat growth. Their deck said “trusted partner.” Their customers said “easy to leave.” The gap was the brand, and it was on the P&L the whole time.
When your board asks why growth has stalled next quarter, where does the answer live?
Full breakdown, plus the 90-day fix: pulpstrategy.com/blog/brand-strategy-mistakes-indian-companies