What I got wrong #1

I once spent three months building a brand strategy before talking to a single customer.
Interviews. Surveys. Personas built from data. All of it. I was so proud of it.

I presented it to the board. They loved it. Polished. Logical. Backed by numbers.
Then we launched. And the audience didn't respond the way the data said they would.

Because data tells you what people do. It does not tell you why.
One conversation with a real customer would have saved me three months and a lot of misplaced confidence.

Now I talk to customers and customer service first. Read the reviews.
Strategy second.

The spreadsheet is not the customer.
Branding is why. Marketing is how.