Why Most Brands Are Busy — Not Strategic
A familiar start to a new year
As 2026 begins, many brands are doing what they always do at the start of a new year.
They’re planning content calendars.
Booking campaigns.
Refreshing websites.
Setting targets.
Talking about growth.
And yet, behind the activity, there’s a familiar feeling:
We’re busy — but are we actually being strategic?
This is one of the most common conversations I have with founders, directors and leadership teams. Not because they’re doing things wrong — but because they’re doing too many things without a clear direction holding them together.
Being busy feels productive.
Being strategic feels quieter.
But only one of those leads to sustainable growth.
Busy vs strategic: an important distinction
Most brands don’t lack effort, they lack strategic clarity.
Being busy usually looks like:
Marketing activity without a clear priority
Multiple campaigns running at once
Content being produced “because we should”
Decisions driven by urgency rather than intention
Teams reacting instead of leading
Being strategic looks very different:
Clear direction and focus
Fewer initiatives, executed properly
Marketing aligned to business goals and values
Confident decision-making
Space to think, not just respond
The danger is that busyness can mask a lack of strategy. Activity creates the illusion of progress — even when nothing meaningful is moving forward.
Why this problem is surfacing so strongly in 2026
The start of 2026 feels different. Across food & drink, charities and wellness brands in particular, I’m seeing a shared pressure:
Rising costs
Greater scrutiny on values and ethics
Increased competition
Tired teams
Audiences who are harder to reach and harder to convince
In this environment, doing more is rarely the answer. Brands that thrive in 2026 won’t be the loudest, they’ll be the smartest.
Strategy is no longer a “nice-to-have” — it’s how you decide:
what to focus on
what to stop doing
where to invest time and budget
how to grow without losing your purpose
Without it, everything becomes urgent — and nothing becomes important.
The myth that strategy is separate from marketing
One of the biggest misunderstandings I still see is the idea that:
“We’ll just crack on with the marketing — we don’t need a strategy phase.”
But strategy is marketing.
If you don’t know:
who you’re really for
what problem you solve
what makes you different
what success actually looks like
…then marketing tasks are just movement without meaning.
You might be posting, emailing, advertising and launching, but without strategy, all of that effort is disconnected.
This is why so many brands feel exhausted by marketing. They’re executing without orientation.
What strategic clarity actually gives you
When brands come to me feeling busy and overwhelmed, they’re rarely asking for “more marketing”.
They’re asking for:
clarity
direction
confidence
alignment
Strategic clarity does a few crucial things:
1. It creates focus
You stop trying to do everything — and start doing the right things.
2. It makes decisions easier
When values and priorities are clear, decisions stop being emotionally draining.
3. It aligns teams
Everyone understands the direction, the why, and their role within it.
4. It protects purpose
Growth stops feeling like a threat to what made the brand special in the first place.
This is why strategy isn’t abstract thinking. It’s a practical leadership tool.
What I implement with clients (and why it works)
When I work with brands, the first thing we do is slow down — deliberately.
Not to stall progress, but to create space for thinking.
Typically, this involves:
Clarifying purpose and values (beyond statements on a website)
Defining what success actually means for this brand
Identifying where effort is currently being diluted
Creating a clear strategic direction that marketing can follow
Only then do we talk about channels, content, campaigns or execution.
Because once the strategy is clear:
marketing becomes calmer
teams feel more confident
effort starts compounding instead of scattering
It’s not about doing less for the sake of it, it’s about doing less with intent.
Why values matter more than ever in strategy
In 2026, values aren’t just a branding exercise. Instead, they’re a decision-maker filter, a leadership tool and a way to build trust in a sceptical market.
Brands that treat values as window dressing often feel the most chaotic internally. Brands that use values as a strategic compass tend to move with far more confidence.
Values-led strategy asks questions like:
Does this decision align with who we say we are?
Is this growth sustainable — emotionally and ethically?
What are we willing not to do?
These questions reduce noise. They sharpen focus.
A question worth asking as the year begins
As you plan for 2026, here’s a simple but powerful question:
Are we busy, or are we strategic?
If the answer feels uncomfortable, that’s not a failure. It’s an invitation. An invitation to pause, reflect, and choose direction over noise.
Because the brands that succeed this year won’t be the ones doing the most —
they’ll be the ones doing what matters, on purpose.
Strategy as an act of leadership
Strategy isn’t about control, it’s about clarity. It’s about giving your team, your customers and your organisation a clear sense of where you’re going — and why.
As 2026 unfolds, the most effective brands will be those that resist the pressure to constantly react — and instead lead with intention.
That’s where sustainable growth lives.
Through Virtue Studios, I partner with charities, food & drink, and wellness brands who care deeply about their impact, but want clearer direction as they grow.
My work focuses on strategic clarity: helping teams reconnect to purpose, prioritise what matters, and build marketing that actually goes somewhere.
