Planning season isn’t just about setting goals – it’s about making informed decisions that align with your audience’s expectations, your brand’s positioning, and the marketplace at large. That kind of clarity doesn’t happen overnight, which is why strategic organizations start investing in research well before Q4. The third quarter of the year (Q3) presents a unique opportunity to collect and apply brand insights ahead of planning season, giving teams the valuable runway they need to direct their marketing and brand strategy.

Marketing decisions rely on fresh, consumer-backed perspectives

By Q3, most brands have closed out the first half of the fiscal year and have enough performance data to evaluate what’s working, what isn’t, and where to pivot. Layering brand insights at this point allows marketers to align future plans with how consumers are actually responding – not just what internal teams assume.

Key benefits of gathering brand insights in Q3:

• Time to translate insights into action: Starting in Q3 gives teams breathing room to interpret research and apply findings in meaningful ways, whether they’re developing messaging, building a new brand architecture, or realigning their tone of voice across channels.
• Cross-functional alignment: Early insights can align marketing, product, and sales teams before strategic conversations begin – increasing the likelihood of cohesive, consumer-centered goals during formal planning.
• Ahead-of-the-curve thinking: Brands that start early can test new positioning or ideas before competitors get to market, resulting in more proactive – not reactive – strategies.

How to use brand research before planning season

Q3 insights can help your team answer essential questions like:

• Is our tone of voice resonating with our audience?
• What’s driving loyalty or causing friction in our brand experience?
• Where does our brand stand in the competitive landscape today?

Insights rooted in these questions pave the way for stronger campaign briefs, sharper messaging, and more confident investments during Q4.

And if your current team lacks the capacity to run brand research ahead of planning, this is where On Demand Talent truly shines. With instant access to professionals who can hit the ground running, you can bring on an experienced insights lead to drive discovery work, conduct segmentation studies, or develop brand trackers – all with flexible timelines and without needing to grow your full-time headcount.

Starting early in Q3 doesn’t just help you collect information – it ensures that you’re walking into planning season with true consumer clarity.

Campaigns that succeed don’t happen by chance. They’re rooted in a deep understanding of your audience, your market, and your brand’s role in the world. This is where brand insights become indispensable. By shaping foundational elements like campaign briefs and messaging, insights transform marketing from guesswork into strategy – helping teams craft communications that resonate, engage, and convert.

Translating research into campaign direction

A strong campaign brief acts as a bridge between brand strategy and execution. But to write one that delivers, you need more than high-level plans – you need clarity on what matters most to your audience today. Brand insights equip marketers with the right inputs to define campaign objectives, target personas, key messages, and tone of voice guidelines.

For example, let’s say your brand research reveals that your target audience values sustainability but doesn’t associate your brand with those efforts. That insight could spark a new creative concept or adjust your media strategy to feature messaging in channels where sustainability cues are more relevant. These types of directional pivots are only possible when insights are gathered early.

What insights reveal that templates can’t:

• Audience segmentation: Understanding nuances between consumer groups helps teams create messaging that speaks directly to different needs and beliefs.
• Emotional drivers: Going beyond product benefits, insights uncover how people feel about your brand, informing tone of voice and attitude in comms strategy.
• Message testing: Pre-planning insights enable teams to test positioning pillars and gauge reaction before committing significant resources to campaign development.

Bringing tone of voice and brand personality into sharper view

Brand insights also help define how your brand should sound. A cohesive tone of voice builds familiarity and trust, but tone isn’t just a creative decision – it’s often a reflection of audience expectations. For instance, if research shows that your core customer group sees your brand as friendly but overly casual, slight adjustments to your tone can align your messaging more closely with how you want to be perceived – warm and approachable, but still professional.

Real-world campaigns grounded in research tend to not only perform better but also feel more authentic. And with Q4 planning fast approaching, leveraging brand insights in your campaign briefing process during Q3 ensures your messaging is timely, relevant, and market-ready.

Need expert support to get there faster?

If your internal team is stretched thin or lacks a dedicated resource to manage campaign-related research, SIVO’s On Demand Talent solution gives you instant access to seasoned consumer insights professionals. These experts can lead qualitative and quantitative studies, create message testing frameworks, or activate brand strategy work – all within timelines compatible with pre-planning work in Q3. Unlike hiring new staff or vetting freelancers, On Demand Talent professionals are ready to step in and contribute right away.

The earlier insights become part of your campaign development, the better your chance of building messaging that cuts through the noise. Let Q3 be the time to listen to your audience – so your brand can speak with confidence when it matters most.

When preparing for the annual planning season, many organizations zero in on messaging and media channels—but they often overlook two foundational elements that shape every future campaign: brand architecture and tone of voice guidelines. These are more than just internal frameworks. They help align internal teams, support consistency across touchpoints, and ensure marketing strategy stays connected to what consumers truly value.

Brand architecture is the strategic framework that defines how different products, sub-brands, and services fit under the larger brand umbrella. It ensures clarity, both internally for decision-makers and externally for customers. Research-backed brand architecture can answer key questions like:

• Should we consolidate or differentiate between product lines?
• Does our current architecture make it easy for consumers to navigate our offerings?
• Are we clear about the role each sub-brand plays in our broader brand strategy?

By conducting consumer research in Q3, brands can test perception, clarify positioning, and optimize how information is structured. This allows marketers to make more confident decisions before entering Q4 planning.

Tone of voice is equally important. It's not just how you speak, but what your tone signals about your personality and values. Whether it's friendly and upbeat or expert and authoritative, tone must be rooted in audience expectations. Poorly defined tone leads to inconsistent messaging, especially across teams or agencies. That’s where brand insights help.

Gathering input on how consumers perceive your voice versus competitors helps identify whether your tone supports your intended positioning—or sends mixed messages. Insights can also help define tone of voice brand guidelines examples that match audience needs at different stages of the customer journey.

For example, a fictional brand launching a premium skincare line might uncover through research that their current tone feels too generic and fails to convey the expertise consumers expect from luxury wellness products. By identifying this disconnect in Q3, the brand can realign tone and messaging ahead of campaign briefing and media planning in Q4.

Working on tone and brand architecture too late in the planning process often means teams are strapped for time and forced to rely on assumptions. Starting in Q3 ensures that these critical brand foundations are informed by data-driven consumer insights, not just creative preferences.

Pre-planning season is a high-leverage window, but it’s a phase where brands frequently stumble. Seeing this time as a simple “waiting period” instead of the strategic window it is can lead to missed opportunities that ripple across product launches, campaign impact, and revenue goals.

Here are some of the most common missteps brands make before planning season:

• Starting too late: Waiting until Q4 to begin gathering brand insights often results in rushed research, limited sampling, or decisions based on outdated assumptions. Q3 is the prime moment to initiate consumer insights work that supports confident, data-driven planning.
• Focusing only on performance metrics: While sales and market share data are valuable, they don’t reveal the “why” behind consumer behavior. Digging into brand perceptions, drivers of choice, and evolving audience values helps fine-tune your marketing strategy.
• Skipping internal alignment: Teams often move forward without shared clarity on brand architecture, messaging priorities, or campaign brief objectives. Valuable time is lost later clarifying tone or reworking deliverables. Brand insights help unify stakeholders early on.
• Neglecting their competitors: Pre-planning is not just about looking inward. Understanding shifting competitor positioning, tone of voice, and consumer sentiment helps contextualize your own strategy and find whitespace opportunities.
• Underestimating talent needs: Many insights teams feel stretched thin in Q3–Q4—and either delay work or field incomplete research. Filling temporary gaps or bringing in specialists can ensure priorities stay on track without overburdening internal teams.

For example, a fictional retail brand launching back-to-school campaigns may assume their Gen Z segment values price as the top driver. But Q3 insights could reveal that sustainability and authenticity are rising priorities, requiring a tone and channel shift. Had that research been skipped, the brand might have entered planning season with a campaign brief that missed the mark.

Taking action during the pre-planning window is not just about checking boxes—it’s about creating strategic clarity that lays the groundwork for Q4 execution. Avoiding these mistakes ensures teams move into planning season prepared, not reactive.

Even the most proactive insights teams face limitations during the ramp-up to annual planning. Whether it’s bandwidth constraints, a need for specialized skills, or tight timelines, insights work can easily get delayed or scaled back. That’s where On Demand Talent becomes a high-value solution.

Unlike traditional hiring routes or generalist consultants, SIVO’s On Demand Talent option connects you with skilled consumer insights professionals quickly—often in days or weeks, not months. These experts are ready to hit the ground running, offering you:

• Speed: There’s no need to put off key brand insight projects just because your team is at capacity. On Demand Talent expands your capabilities fast, allowing you to align your timelines with Q3 planning demands.
• Expertise: From designing brand research studies to analyzing tone of voice feedback or supporting the campaign brief development process, these professionals bring experience across industries and solutions.
• Flexibility: Whether you need part-time support for a few weeks or a focused full-time lead for a major pre-study, On Demand Talent adapts to your scope and strategy without long-term commitments.

Say you’re preparing a brand repositioning initiative and need a research lead to gather deep consumer insights around tone perception. Rather than rushing the work or pulling someone off another project, you can quickly bring in a seasoned expert to lead the effort and deliver high-impact takeaways by the end of Q3.

Because our On Demand Talent network is built from a wide range of senior-level professionals—familiar with everything from brand segmentation to comms strategy—you get support that’s more strategic than freelance help and more agile than a full agency engagement.

Whether your organization is a fast-moving startup or a Fortune 500 enterprise, our insights talent helps fill in the gaps so your consumer understanding keeps pace with your business goals. And most importantly, they help ensure your brand research supports strategy—not the other way around.

As brands prepare for planning season, the ability to act quickly on pressing insight needs can be the difference between effective, forward-looking plans and reactive, assumption-based strategies. On Demand Talent helps you stay on the front foot.