Most owners try to change perception with a new logo or colour palette.

It feels like progress. It rarely is.

Brand is the engine underneath: behaviour emits signals, signals accumulate into meaning, meaning hardens into memory. If you don’t build the engine, you’re polishing the bonnet.

• Behaviour is the evidence.
• Values are the rules.
• Sector is the comparison frame.
• Perception is the verdict.
• The Meaning Stack is the mechanism.

Behaviour (the evidence)

Behaviour is what the brand actually does, and what it lets happen.

It’s the refund policy. The response time. The handover quality. The way you price. The way you handle mistakes. The things you refuse.

Small tells matter because they repeat:

Do you reply in hours or days? Is the refund one click or three forms? Do you acknowledge delays, or go quiet? Does “we’ll look into it” ever come back with an answer?

Values (the rules)

Values are constraints you pay for.

A value is the thing you’re willing to lose money on: margin, speed, convenience, data, growth. If it doesn’t have a cost, it isn’t a value. It’s a preference.

Real values show up as policy → practice → evidence:

• Care costs time (training, handovers, make-good policies)
• Quality costs throughput (materials, QA, returns tolerance)
• Fairness costs margin (you don’t squeeze suppliers, you pay properly)
• Privacy costs data (you give up targeting and resale)
• Sustainability costs price or complexity (sourcing, waste, reporting)

Values aren’t there to make you look good. They’re there to stop you lying to yourself under pressure.

Sector (the comparison frame)

Sector sets the default expectations people bring with them—often physical ones: materials, typography, pacing, and what gets treated as “normal”.

Finance doesn’t just “expect stability”. It expects:

• restrained type, tight grids, conservative spacing
• deep blues/charcoals, low saturation, minimal visual fuss
• heavy paper, wet signatures, formal letters, confirmations
• friction as reassurance: checks, steps, documents
• language that sounds audited: precise, careful, unemotional

FMCG doesn’t just “expect value and speed”. It expects:

• big type, high shelf contrast, bold colour blocks
• bursts, stickers, claims you can scan fast
• packaging that works at arm’s length, in bad light, at speed
• familiar category codes: “what it is” in two seconds

Luxury doesn’t just “expect craft and exclusivity”. It expects:

• weight, texture, finish; quiet colour; controlled whitespace
• slow reveal: fewer claims, more restraint
• photography that behaves like art direction, not persuasion
• price held firm (discounting collapses status)

Sector is the baseline grammar. Expression is how you speak it.

Sector norms are free comprehension. Break them and you pay in explanation.

Energies and Expressions (the constraint)

Energies explain why a brand moves. Expressions show how it behaves in public. Without constraint, brands meander: marketing pulls one way, product another, service another. And you pay for the argument twice.

• Freedom wants release and aliveness (less friction, more momentum)
• Control wants precision and judgement (clarity, craft, standards)
• Expansion wants deliberate advance (reach, leadership, scale)
• Stability wants reassurance and belonging (reliability, continuity)

Useful diagnostic note: each Energy has a built-in opposite. If you lean too hard, you’ll trigger the opposite reaction in your audience (and in your team).

Perception (the verdict)

Perception is what people conclude after repeated exposure.

It’s not what you intended. It’s what your behaviour made plausible.

You don’t “position” a brand into being. You behave your way into a position, then you either reinforce it or undermine it. If the perception isn’t what you want, don’t argue with the audience. Fix the system that produced it.

The Meaning Stack (the mechanism)

This is where brand becomes memory: what you emit, what it comes to mean, what survives.

Diagnostic rule:
If perception is wrong, fix semantics. If semantics are confused, fix signals. If recall is weak, build assets.

Signals (what you emit)

Signals are observable outputs:

• Verbal: words, slogans, tone (subject lines, error messages, scripts)
• Visual: colour, type, layout (spacing, hierarchy, contrast)
• Behavioural: routines, policies, service standards (handoffs, callbacks, refunds)
• Product: sound, feel, motion, reliability (clicks, lag, weight, creaks)
• Commercial: price posture, discount rules, guarantees
• Media: where you appear and how often

Semantics (what people infer)

Semantics are the meanings people infer from signals over time.

A fast reply says “responsive”. A slow reply with acknowledgement says “honest and in control”. A slow reply with silence says “we’re stretched” or “we don’t care”. Same delay. Different meaning.

You don’t own semantics just by declaring them.

Assets (what survives)

Assets are cues that become shortcuts to memory: the bits recognised fast and linked correctly.

Colours, shapes, sounds, formats, rituals. Not decoration — compression.

Cadbury purple. McDonald’s arches. Nike swoosh. John Lewis Christmas slot. Harrods green bags.

Assets only become assets through repetition and correct linkage.

Assets are the most efficient tools in the system: once established, they carry maximum meaning for minimum work. You pay once to establish them, then they do the heavy lifting.

How to test the stack

• Signal test: can people notice it in a scroll? (attention)
• Semantic test: can they tell you what it means? (association)
• Asset test: can they spot it and name the brand? (recognition + linkage)

If they can’t link it to you, you don’t own it.

How the whole system connects

Behaviour produces signals.

Signals produce semantics.

Semantics become memory through assets.

Values constrain behaviour.

Sector sets the reading key.

Media amplifies whatever you’re emitting, with clarity or distortion.

If any one part is sloppy, you pay elsewhere: explanation, approval drag, rework, distrust.

Build it as a weekly habit

Keep it practical. One page. Run it weekly.

Interpretation check:
Can four people in different roles describe what we’re doing this week in the same sentence? If not, fix clarity before adding output.

Behaviour check:
What repeated tells did we ship? (response times, refunds, handovers, tone, follow-through)

Values check:
Where did a value cost us something this week, and did we pay it, or dodge it?

Sector check:
Did we break a sector default? If yes, did we consciously pay the explanation bill?

Meaning Stack check:
List the top signals we emitted; state the meaning they imply; name the one cue we’re trying to own.

Assets check:
Did we reuse what we own, or restart the learning curve? Where can we tighten repetition without becoming stale?

Evidence check:
For each key claim, write the measure, the target, and the time-frame. If you can’t measure it, soften the claim.

Cadence:
Weekly behaviour review / monthly evidence check / quarterly reset of what you stop doing.

A note on reality

The world skims. Constrain behaviour, build assets, and back claims with evidence. Repeat.