Top 5 Brand Strategy Briefs of 2025

2025 is almost in the books.

Before we turn the page to 2026, I wanted to curate the 5 most well-received Brand Strategy Briefs from this year.

If you missed them, or just need a refresher, these 5 newsletters will help you hit the ground running in 2026.

1. Reactive Leadership Destroys Brands (10 min read)

• The Problem: Your calendar is a shield. It gets filled with back-to-back meetings that drain the energy needed for deep strategic work.

• The Pivot: "Busyness" is actually a state of cognitive shutdown. This brief explains why meetings can do more harm than good. And how to build the moat you need to actually lead.

2. Brand Awareness is a Deceptive Metric (5 min read)

• The Problem: You celebrate reach and impressions. But your growth is stalled. You are paying for eyeballs, not desire.

• The Pivot: Awareness is table stakes. But it doesn't win the battle for your customers' wallets. Preference is a bankable asset. This brief shows you why you need a strategy for moving from known to preferred.

3. Why Great Companies Say No (3 min read)

• The Problem: You are so terrified of losing a single sale that you have diluted your brand into a vanilla commodity that stands for nothing.

• The Pivot: This brief explores the scary—but profitable—discipline of strategic sacrifice. If you aren't saying no to good ideas, you aren't building a brand.

4. Is Your Brand Fighting the Wrong War? (4 min read)

• The Problem: You are obsessed with your competitors. You copy their features, match their pricing, and wonder why you are stuck in a race to the bottom.

• The Pivot: You cannot win a game where the rules were written by the incumbent. This brief challenges you to stop competing on "better" and start competing by changing the category design entirely.

5. Why Smart Brands Make Dumb Decisions (7 min read)

• The Problem: You think internal alignment is a sign of a strong strategy. In reality, your team is just all wrong together.

• The Pivot: This introduces The Consensus Trap. It reveals why the most comfortable meetings often produce the most dangerous blind spots—and provides the framework to pressure-test your ideas before the market humbles you.

Information without application is just noise.

You don't need to read all five of these today. Bookmark this email.

When you feel the drift of "busyness," read Brief #1. When you are arguing about ad spend, read Brief #2. When you are terrified to narrow your focus, read Brief #3.

Here is to a clearer, sharper 2026.

Onward,

Aaron Shields

P.S. The hardest part of strategy is getting others to see what you see.

If one of these briefs helped clarify your thinking, pass it along. It might be the spark that gets everyone on the same page for the new year.