I've sat through countless strategy meetings where brilliant minds throw ideas at whiteboards like they're playing darts in the dark. Everyone's excited, the energy is high, but when the session ends, no one can quite articulate what we're actually doing. Sound familiar?
That's why I developed the four-point strategy framework - a structured process that transforms messy challenges into razor-sharp, actionable strategies. It's not about adding more steps to your process. It's about creating a single, powerful organizing idea that everything else can rally around.
Let me walk you through it.
Point One: Problem
The obstacle or barrier preventing people from doing or buying something.
Here's what most people get wrong about defining problems: they make them too big, too vague, too corporate. "We need to increase brand awareness" isn't a problem - it's a symptom of lazy thinking.
The Problem in my framework is the core friction point that's actively preventing your target audience from taking the action you want them to take. This requires real research. You need to observe, listen, and then distill everything you've learned into one sharp, concrete statement that defines the challenge.
I'm not interested in general business complaints. I want to know the actual behavior or sentiment that needs to be overcome.
Take the New York Knicks. When I worked on their brand, we could have said something generic like "declining ticket sales" or "negative brand perception." But the real problem we identified was much more specific and visceral: "Fans are hate-supporting the team."
See the difference? That's a precise, observable problem. It names the behavior. It gives us something concrete to work with. Everything that follows in the framework depends on getting this part right.
Point Two: Insight
An unspoken human truth.
Now we dig deeper. The Insight is where strategy becomes art.
An insight isn't a fact about your market or a statistic from your research deck. It's a foundational, unspoken human truth that explains the emotional or behavioral root of your Problem. It must connect thematically to the challenge you're solving, but it operates on a deeper, more universal level.
I test every insight against two criteria:
First, it must resonate. A real insight triggers an emotional reaction - that moment where your audience thinks, "Yes! I've never heard anyone say it, but that's exactly how I feel." I call this the "glitch" - that little interruption in someone's thought pattern that makes them pay attention.
Second, it must connect two ideas. The most powerful insights combine two disparate topics to create new meaning. Think "Dad is toy" or "Silence is a statement." This unexpected pairing is what makes the concept stick in people's minds.
The insight's power comes from its ability to interrupt existing beliefs and routines. It doesn't need to be universally true - it just needs to be true enough that your target audience feels it deeply.
For the Knicks project, we could have landed on something safe about team loyalty or New York pride. But the real insight was darker and more interesting: people's relationship with frustration, with anger, with the cathartic release of having something to yell about.
Point Three: Advantage
What makes your brand unique and motivating in people's minds.
This is where most strategists play it safe. They want to talk about quality, innovation, heritage - all the greatest hits of brand positioning. But I've found that the most compelling strategies often come from embracing something unexpected about your brand.
The Advantage is a factual or historical statement that answers: "What makes us unique and motivating?" But here's the twist: it must connect directly to your Insight and Problem. Sometimes that means taking what looks like a weakness and strategically repurposing it as a strength.
For the Knicks, we didn't run from the reality that the team had been frustrating fans for decades. We leaned into it. The Advantage became: "The New York Knicks are designed to make people angry."
Now, that might sound insane on its surface. But when you view it through the lens of the human truth we'd identified - the complex relationship people have with their frustrations - it becomes a competitive strength. It's ownable. It's authentic. It's something no other team could claim.
Your job at this stage is to find that truth about your brand that, when filtered through your insight, transforms from potential liability into strategic asset.
Point Four: Strategy
A new way of seeing a brand based on the Problem, Insight, and Advantage.
This is where it all comes together.
The Strategy is your final, overarching organizing idea. It resolves the previous three points into one concise statement that gives your entire creative team a clear direction. I typically structure it as: "We'll show that X is Y."
For the Knicks, it crystallized into: "We'll show that the New York Knicks are the best anger management in town."
Simple. Confident. Clear.
Notice what I'm not doing here. I'm not using phrases like "leveraging synergies" or "driving meaningful engagement" or any other cloudy corporate jargon that sounds impressive in meetings but means nothing when you actually try to execute on it.
I want short, sharp nouns and verbs. I want language that a five-year-old could understand but that's sophisticated enough to guide complex creative work.
Here's what makes a great strategy powerful: it creates a focused "sandbox" for creativity. The direction is narrow and specific, but the creative possibilities within that focus are enormous. Instead of telling your team they can do anything (which paradoxically leads to paralysis), you're giving them guardrails. And those guardrails let them channel all their energy toward a unified, compelling target.
Why This Framework Works
I've used this four-point framework across industries, company sizes, and creative challenges. It works because it forces clarity at every step.
You can't skip to the strategy without first defining the problem. You can't identify a true advantage without understanding the human insight. Each point builds on the previous one, creating a logical chain that's both rigorous and creative.
But more importantly, it gives you a tool for saying "no." When someone brings you a tactic or a creative execution that doesn't connect back to these four points, you have a clear reason to reject it. Not because it's bad, but because it doesn't serve the strategy.
That's the real power of this framework. It doesn't just help you figure out what to do - it helps you figure out what not to do. And in a world drowning in options, that kind of clarity is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Getting Started
If you want to try this framework yourself, start with the Problem. Don't move forward until you've nailed it. Write it, test it with colleagues, rewrite it until it's so specific that there's no ambiguity about what behavior or sentiment you're trying to change.
Then dig for that insight. Look for the uncomfortable truths, the things people think but don't say. Combine unexpected ideas. Make yourself uncomfortable.
Find your advantage by asking: what do we have (or what are we) that no one else can claim? Don't be afraid to look at the unconventional angles.
And finally, craft your strategy in the clearest, sharpest language possible. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough yet.
Because at the end of the day, strategy isn't about having the most sophisticated framework or the longest document. It's about knowing exactly where you're going and being able to bring everyone along with you.
That's what these four points give you: a compass when everyone else is wandering in the fog.
