THE SYMPTOM
THE SCALE OUTGREW THE SPRINT. THE PROBLEM DIDN'T.
Perhaps your company has grown past what one practitioner can lead directly. Often this appears as a complex brand architecture, with multiple products, markets, and industries. In these scenarios, a full agency engagement is the right call.
But the decision that got you here doesn't get easier just because you hired more help. Someone still has to choose the right agency, shape a brief that survives the internal committee, engage in strategy presentations, and challenge whether what's being recommended is true to the brand, or just the version that was easiest to get signed off on.
The decisions can be daunting and marketing leaders are expected to get it right the first time.
WHAT'S MISSING
AN AGENCY TELLS YOU WHAT THEY'D DO.
A good agency will bring you research, workshops, a deck, a point of view. What they won't tell you is when their own recommendation is the safe answer instead of the true one. They're incentivized to win the engagement and get the work approved. Nobody on their side of the table is positioned to tell you when to push back.
THE DIFFERENCE
I HELP YOU DECIDE WHAT'S TRUE, NOT JUST WHAT'S POSSIBLE.
I'm not on the agency's payroll, and that's exactly why I can tell you when they're wrong. I sit on your side of the table for the length of the engagement. When the room starts moving toward the comfortable answer, I'm the one who says so, before it ships.
What It Is
AN INDEPENDENT, SENIOR BRAND MIND, FOR THE LIFE OF YOUR TRANSFORMATION.
Brand Counsel is an embedded advisory engagement that runs alongside your agency relationship. I guide you through the RFP process, help you get the right partner in place, make sure the brief reflects what's actually true about your brand, and hold every round of work to that standard until launch.
Through the engagement, I:
Help you select and brief the right agency — evaluating partners against your actual brand problem, not a generic RFP, and shaping the brief so it can't get watered down before the work even starts.
Review strategic and creative recommendations against what's true — not what tested well internally, and not what's easiest to defend in a room full of stakeholders.
Sit in your internal reviews as an independent voice — someone in the room whose only job is the brand's truth, not the agency relationship, or internal politics.
Tell you directly when something doesn't hold up — early enough to fix it, not after it's already been presented to the board.
WHO IT’S FOR
You have the budget. You likely have a shortlist, or an agency already engaged. What you don’t have yet is another expert alongside you. Someone to help guide the process and challenge the thinking — about who’s the right partner, which brand elements are untouchable, and whether the recommendation in front of you is actually right or just comfortable.
This is for the leader who wants a senior second opinion at every turn of the brand transformation journey.
Brand Counsel is different from the Brand Truth Assessment or the Strategy Sprint. The Assessment tells you whether you need to change. The Sprint is me doing the strategic thinking directly, for companies where that's the right scale. Brand Counsel is for when the scale means the thinking has to happen inside a full agency engagement, and you don't want to navigate that alone.
HOW IT WORKS
How It Works
01
WE SCOPE THE ENGAGEMENT TO YOUR TRANSFORMATION.
A defined run from wherever you are now (agency selection, or an engagement already underway) through launch. We agree on where I'm needed most: selection, brief, strategy review, creative review, or all of it.
02
I HELP YOU CHOOSE AND BRIEF THE RIGHT PARTNER.
If the agency isn’t locked in yet, I help evaluate the shortlist against your actual brand problem, and shape the brief so it holds up under internal pressure to soften it.
03
I REVIEW EVERY MAJOR ROUND AGAINST WHAT’S TRUE.
Positioning, strategy, creative — whatever the agency brings back, I give you an independent read before you have to react to it in the room.
04
I’M IN THE ROOM THROUGH TO LAUNCH.
You get my direct, real-time judgment in the reviews and stakeholder conversations that decide what actually ships.
WHAT CHANGES
WHEN YOU HAVE SOMEONE ON YOUR SIDE OF THE TABLE.
The agency relationship stops being the biggest source of risk in the transformation. Recommendations get a second, independent read before they reach the board. Internal debates get resolved faster because there's a senior voice in the room whose only stake is the truth of your brand. And you walk into your own leadership meetings having already stress-tested the answer, instead of finding out what was wrong with it in front of your CEO.
THE INVESTMENT
SCOPED TO YOUR TRANSFORMATION, NOT A RETAINER CALENDAR.
Brand counsel is priced as a senior advisory engagement, billed monthly, for the defined length of your transformation — not an open-ended arrangement. The fee reflects the scope we agree on up front: which phases, how much time in the room, and through to what milestone. I'll confirm a specific fee once I understand your agency engagement and where you need me most.
WHY ME
Before I did this independently, I did it as the client. I led global rebrands and managed agencies across multiple continents from inside companies like Sage, AVEVA, and ClearCo — translating between agency recommendations and executive decisions, and saying so when the room was drifting toward convenient instead of true.
FAQ
WHAT YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING.
How is this different from the Strategy Sprint?
Do you replace our agency?
How long does this typically run?
What if we haven’t chosen an agency yet?
Is this confidential?
What if we’re not sure this is the right scale for us?
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