Australian journal · Est. 2004
Branding Agency
A journal of Australian brand strategy, identity and practice
Long-form essays for people who have to live with a brand after the launch deck.
Topic hub
Essays on the work that is supposed to constrain everything else: positioning that can kill a campaign, architecture that is not a filing slide, and category claims that change the offer rather than the slogan.
6 essays in this hub. See the full archive.
Strategy/8 April 2026
Purpose statements had a decade of conferences and a shorter, harder decade of ridicule. The useful remainder is not a manifesto. It is a constraint on what the organisation will not sell, sponsor or stay silent about — and a lawyer who can live with it.
Marcus Hale · 5 min read · Read the essay
Strategy/4 March 2026
The Australian names register is not empty, and neither is the public’s patience. A good name is available, sayable, and able to carry a refusal. A bad name is a mood board that dies in a trade-mark search, a call centre, or a town that already had one.
Elise Tan · 5 min read · Read the essay
Strategy/11 February 2026
Imported category-design talk treats Australia like a large, loosely regulated market. It is not. Duopolies, the ACCC and a thin population change when a challenger should pick a fight, and when the honest job is to be the second cola without pretending otherwise.
Elise Tan · 10 min read · Read the essay
Strategy/14 January 2026
A listed-company rebrand can look finished in a board pack and still fail on the shop floor. Continuous disclosure, call-centre scripts and the first Monday after launch decide whether the new identity is a system or a press release. Here is a sequence that survives both.
Marcus Hale · 10 min read · Read the essay
Strategy/3 December 2025
Australian groups buy brands faster than they retire them. The architecture slide arrives after the deal, not before. This essay is about deciding when a branded house, a house of brands or an endorsement actually earns its keep in retail, super, government and the universities.
Marcus Hale · 11 min read · Read the essay
Strategy/18 November 2025
Most Australian positionings are adjective piles that survive a workshop and die in a range review. A usable one tells a chief financial officer, a lawyer and a store manager what they must refuse. If it cannot kill a campaign idea, it is not a positioning.
Elise Tan · 11 min read · Read the essay