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Do you have a Clear Brand Vision?

Brand Vision
A Clear Vision Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash 

Do you have a clear brand Vision?

This question should guide your dreams and be the starting point of your branding journey. What is the change that you want to see in the world, as Miltenburg asks (Miltenburg 67)? Having a clear brand vision and mission based on solid brand values leads the way through our branding process.

Why are you doing what you are doing now? Especially for your coworkers, producers, investors, or customers, this should be very clear to them in order to follow you.

The branding process is a very long journey that has several steps in it. Creating the right Brand Core is the most important step. This is the base, the character, and the foundation of your Brand. Brand Core consists of Brand Essence, Brand Vision, Brand Mission, Brand Values, and Brand Promises (Miltenburg, 2017; p. 64-74).

Brand Essence has been dealt with in our previous blogs "HARA HACHI BU," "CREATING BRANDS WITH VALUE, " and “MUJI.”

Having a clear vision or a picture of your final destination in your mind is crucial, whether this is a movement or individual, or a large organization. 

Vision could be different from different perspectives (Miltenburg, s: 67):

Graph for the Brand Vision
What is a Vision?

Although there is always a gap between ideology and reality, a positive vision is very impactful, like what a company could be like. This was also realized by a few companies like Patagonia. They realized their vision as a game-changer and disrupted the industry (Weller, Alex; Patagonia (Brand the Change Case).


1)        Brand Vision

Miltenburg explains the relationship between the Vision and the Mission with the Analogy of climbing a Hill. Vision is your ideal world that you would like to create with the help of your offerings, and the perfect view that you would like to see when you are at the top of the hill. The question is what will change in the lives of your audience after you introduce your offerings to them. This is the destination that you want to go to (Miltenburg 67-68).

Question for Brand Vision: WHAT?
The Vision

In order to create a vision, Miltenburg advised us to visualize our dream world, our customers' daily life, and what we would like it to look like. As an inspiration, you can check the leading brands and their impact on society with their vision. Like Patagonia, their impact report (Patagonia Impact Report) of 2025 underlined how they reached their idea of disrupting the fast fashion industry by paying attention to repair and donating part of their income to environmental organizations.

Their Business Unusual Motto is:

``We exist to save our home planet. That's not just a purpose statement—it's part of our legal charter and embedded into the way Patagonia is owned and governed``

(Patagonia Impact Report).

If you could work with artists and designers to draw a picture of your vision, you could also invite your team to join this process. During this process, you can also collect some ideas from your team to add maybe more features to your products or offerings, or how you can get there. Afterwards, hanging your vision boards in common rooms may signal to your shareholders your clear vision. There is some online help from Canva or from BetterUp to create a vision board visually.

2)        Brand Mission:

The mission will answer the Question

 How? :

A hiker with a backpack climbs rugged boulders on a mountain peak under a blue sky. To reach his Vision. To fullfill his mission
The Mision

Photo by Brad Barmore on Unsplash

To create a vision, Miltenburg advised us to visualize our dream world, our customers' daily life, and

After specifying the vision board, the next step is to draw the way we are going to reach that vision.

  • ``What do you do towards your idea for change``?

  • And why? (Miltenburg, 2017, p. 69).

Again, like in Vision, you can answer this question from different perspectives: For your industry, how to change it, for the world, or for a specific ambition. Kevin Starr from the Mulago Foundation has a simple formula for this  (Miltenburg, s. 69):

``We find founders who have a scalable solution to poverty—and the chops to deliver it. (Mulago Foundation).

In a maximum of 8 words, you have to use a verb + a target population + a measurable outcome. Like `` We are in business to save the world` (Patagonia, Mission Statement).

"At Patagonia, we appreciate that all life on earth is under threat of extinction. We aim to use the resources we have—our business, our investments, our voice and our imaginations—to do something about it". (Patagonia, Mission Statement).

More specific examples could be designing educational programs for Africa

``Foundational literacy and numeracy for every child.``Inspiring Teachers (Mulago Foundation).

The mission composer was created visually by Miltenburg (Miltenburg, s. 174), which will help you to clarify and summarize your mission in one compelling sentence. You can also use it for investor pitches or for investors and founders. Even adding a call to action is possible. For that, you have to answer the following questions:

  • What is the problem that you are addressing?

  • Who are you?

  • What do you do?

  • Why is matters?

After working on these questions and words, you can summarize them in one sentence.

Finding and summarizing your brand mission will be the first steps that you have to build your brand core, then you have to think about your brand values and brand purpose. For them, in detail, you can follow the next article:)

Have a lovely summer

With a clear brand vision

Azra Bayraktar

Vienna, June 2026

References

Miltenburg, Anne: ``The Brand Change``, BIS Publishers, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2017, ISBN: 978-90-63947-8-4.

Weller, Alex: The success of Patagonia, Brand the Change, “https://youtu.be/rzazYHbcT44


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