Brand Strategy & Positioning
Positioning, messaging, audience research and the uncomfortable work of deciding what you are not.
Browse the beat
An editorial blog from the crew at GrainCrew — a content studio working out of India with teams around the world. We write about the craft of making things people actually want to watch, read and remember.
The journal is organised around the questions our clients actually ask us. Pick a beat and read everything we’ve written on it — no sign-up wall, no gated PDFs.
Positioning, messaging, audience research and the uncomfortable work of deciding what you are not.
How to brief a writer, kill your favourite sentence, and build a voice guide people actually follow.
Shoot diaries, budget breakdowns and the logistics of making good footage without a big crew.
Platform-native thinking, community moderation, and why posting less can mean being seen more.
Budget frameworks, creative testing and the discipline of killing a campaign that’s still “working”.
What’s changing in search, what isn’t, and how to write for humans without losing the crawlers.
Fair rates, tight briefs and honest measurement — how to work with creators without treating them as inventory.
What Indian audiences get right, what global brands keep missing, and the stories in between.
Most creative work fails before a single frame is shot. The brief is where campaigns are won or quietly lost — and it’s the document nobody wants to spend time on. We pulled apart forty of ours to find out what actually matters.
Tight pre-production, one location, and a shot list that survived contact with reality. A breakdown of the schedule, the gear and the decisions we’d make differently.
The best media buyers we know are boring. They test in small batches, kill fast, and spend most of their time on the creative rather than the dashboard.
Fewer buzzwords, more specificity. The brands winning here tend to talk about a real person in a real kitchen — and global teams could learn from it.
AI summaries, zero-click results and the slow death of the ten-blue-links page. What still works, and what to stop spending money on this year.
Before you publish anything new, look at what you already have. Most brands are sitting on a decade of material that just needs re-reading and re-cutting.
Updated at the start of every month, based on what people actually finish reading — not just what they click.
The GrainCrew Journal started as an internal document. We were a small crew writing campaigns for clients across India and abroad, and we kept running into the same questions: How do you brief a director? What makes a good hook? Why did that campaign work and this one not? So we started writing the answers down.
Eventually someone suggested we publish it. We’ve been writing weekly ever since. Some essays are practical — budgets, schedules, templates. Others are arguments we’re still having with ourselves. All of them come out of work we’ve actually done, for brands you’d recognise or wouldn’t.
We write in plain language. We name our mistakes. And we don’t publish anything we wouldn’t send to a client. If it doesn’t help someone make better work, it doesn’t go out.
Every essay is written by someone who does the work. No ghostwritten thought leadership, no AI-generated filler dressed up as insight.
We’d rather tell you exactly how we scheduled a three-day shoot than give you five principles of creative excellence. Details are the point.
Some of our most-read pieces are about things that didn’t work. Failure is more instructive than success, and easier to write about honestly.
We write from an Indian vantage point — the pace, the constraints, the audience — but the lessons travel. Half our readers are outside India.
The journal doesn’t take money for coverage. If we mention a tool or a platform it’s because we use it, not because someone paid us to.
No paywall, no gated PDFs, no “enter your email to continue reading”. The archive is open. The newsletter is optional.
Six people do most of the writing. Occasionally a client or a collaborator drops in with a guest essay.
Leads brand and positioning work. Writes about the long game, usually while arguing against a short one.
48 essaysFounder and lead writer. Obsessed with briefs, edits and the difference between a good sentence and a true one.
52 essaysDirects and shoots most of the studio’s film work. Writes shoot diaries and budget breakdowns.
34 essaysRuns the paid practice. Believes most media buying problems are actually creative problems in disguise.
29 essaysBased in London, writes about how brands travel between markets — and what gets lost on the way.
21 essaysNotes that arrive in our inbox, shared with permission. We keep them unedited, including the criticism.
I’ve been running content at a mid-size brand for four years and this is the only marketing blog I read end to end. The piece on content audits saved us about three months of wasted production.
Genuinely useful writing. No fluff, no listicles, no “10x your growth” nonsense. Just people who clearly do the work explaining how they do it.
The Tuesday dispatch is the one newsletter I open on the same day it arrives. It’s thoughtful without being precious and practical without being shallow.
I don’t always agree with the arguments — the piece on posting less was a hard sell for our team — but I always finish the essay. That’s rarer than it should be.
The shoot breakdowns are worth the subscription on their own. I’ve shared the three-day campaign piece with every producer I work with.
We read everything. If you want to write for the journal, have a correction, or want to talk about working together — this is the place.
Usually answered within one working day, by an actual person on the crew.
GrainCrew Journal, 3rd Floor, Anand House,
Koregaon Park, Pune, Maharashtra 411001, India
Last updated: January 2025
GrainCrew (“we”, “us”, “our”) publishes the GrainCrew Journal and respects your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect when you read, subscribe or write to us, why we collect it, and how we handle it.
We send newsletters only to people who have explicitly subscribed. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and we honour unsubscribe requests immediately. You can also write to us at any time to be removed.
We process personal data on the basis of your consent, our legitimate interest in running and improving a publication, and where necessary, to perform a contract with you.
We do not sell your personal data, and we never share your email address with advertisers or sponsors. We may share data with trusted service providers (email delivery, hosting, analytics) who process it strictly on our instructions, and with authorities where legally required.
Newsletter subscriber data is retained until you unsubscribe. Contact form messages are retained for up to 24 months from last contact, unless a working relationship requires longer retention.
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data, and object to certain processing. Requests can be sent to privacy@gaincrew.blog. We respond within 30 days.
Our site uses essential and analytical cookies. You can control cookies through your browser settings; disabling them may affect site functionality. We do not use advertising cookies.
We apply reasonable technical and organisational safeguards to protect your data. No method of transmission over the internet is entirely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
GrainCrew Journal, 3rd Floor, Anand House, Koregaon Park, Pune, Maharashtra 411001, India · privacy@gaincrew.blog · 844-516-4659
Last updated: January 2025
By accessing the GrainCrew Journal or subscribing to our newsletter, you agree to the following terms. Please read them carefully.
All editorial content on this site — essays, text, design, graphics and code — is the property of GrainCrew or its contributors and is protected by applicable intellectual property laws. You may quote short excerpts with clear attribution and a link back to the original essay. Republishing full pieces requires written permission.
The Tuesday dispatch is free. We reserve the right to change publishing frequency, pause the newsletter temporarily, or discontinue it with reasonable notice to subscribers.
We work to be accurate, but errors happen. If you spot one, write to journal@gaincrew.blog and we will correct it promptly, with a visible note where the change is substantive.
We expect correspondence to be civil. We reserve the right to ignore or block communications that are abusive, harassing, or clearly intended to waste our time.
Essays may link to external sites and resources. We are not responsible for the content or practices of those sites, and links do not imply endorsement.
GrainCrew’s total liability arising from your use of this website or newsletter is limited to the amount you have paid us, if any. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses.
These terms are governed by the laws of India. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Pune, Maharashtra.
Questions about these terms: legal@gaincrew.blog
Last updated: January 2025
The essays published on the GrainCrew Journal represent the views of their authors at the time of writing. They are editorial opinion and general information only, and do not constitute professional, financial, legal or investment advice. You should obtain independent professional guidance before acting on anything you read here.
Marketing and content outcomes depend on many variables, including market conditions, budget, product quality, team capability and platform algorithms. Case studies, statistics and results described in our essays are illustrative of past work and are not a promise or guarantee of future performance.
Client names, brand references and reader letters are used with permission. Some names and organisations may be shortened or anonymised at the request of the person concerned. Any resemblance to unpublished client work is coincidental.
The journal does not accept payment for coverage. If we mention a tool, platform or product, it is because we use it or have a genuine view on it — not because we were paid to include it.
All third-party brand names and logos referenced in our essays remain the property of their respective owners and are used for identification and commentary purposes only.
We reserve the right to correct errors, update information, revise essays or change publishing practices at any time without prior notice. Substantive corrections are noted visibly within the affected essay.
This website may contain links to third-party sites. GrainCrew does not control and is not responsible for their content, availability or practices.
If you believe any content on this site is inaccurate, please write to journal@gaincrew.blog and we will review it promptly.