Brand strategist in New Zealand. 30+ years building brands for New Zealand businesses.
Independent thinking, commercial experience and a direct relationship with the business owner.
Protect capital by reducing wasted marketing spend. ✔
Secure a distinctive position that is difficult to compete with. ✔
Simplify decisions with one documented strategy. ✔
A Brand Strategist New Zealand business owners can work directly with
Critical thinking and original thought to understand what makes a business valuable to its customers.
Flying Lizard examines the business, its customers and its market to identify where the greatest strategic opportunity lies. The result is a clear set of decisions about the business, its position and the direction it needs to take. This ensures your marketing plans logo website and digital messaging align perfectly with your strategy rather than vice versa.
Meet Dayne Smith
Brand Strategist & Company Founder.
As the founder of Flying Lizard and lead brand strategist, Dayne brings 30+ years of strategic experience across brand, positioning and marketing in New Zealand, the UK and Australia.
His career started in the late 1980s in the print industry. He then moved into creative and senior roles in London throughout the late 1990s. He gained agency experience at OgilvyOne and Cato. He established the Flying Lizard name and returned to New Zealand building a brand design practice with a ten-person team.
Working directly with business owners across design, marketing and brand development, Dayne made a deliberate shift towards brand strategy in 2015.
Today, Flying Lizard focuses on developing brand strategy for founders, owners and entrepreneurs, then helping put the required changes into practice.
The Flying Lizard Approach
Finding the opportunity your business is best placed to own.
You know your business better than anyone. My role is to bring an independent perspective and established brand strategy principles to help identify the opportunity you may not be seeing clearly.
Together, we work through your business, customers and market to establish what makes your business different, who that difference matters to, and where it can create room for growth.
Strategy comes first, then the work moves into implementation where it is required. Before further investment in marketing, content, advertising or design, we establish what is already in place, what is understood, and what needs to be resolved.
When a practical change is required, Flying Lizard can help put it into practice, either directly or alongside the people and specialists already working with your business.
For consultants and professional service providers:
Need your client‘s Brand Strategy established before you begin your specialist work?
Brand strategy defines the position your business is best placed to own in the mind of its customers.
Brand strategy is not a logo, colour palette or visual identity. It establishes what the business stands for, who it is best placed to serve, what makes it different, and how that value should be understood.
It gives the business a strategic foundation for decisions about what needs to change, how it should be communicated, and what needs to be put into practice.
There is a position for your business that can be more effective than the alternatives available to you. My work is to find it.
The thinking behind this approach is explored in greater depth by Marty Neumeier in The Brand Gap.
Are We a Fit?
Brand strategy is most useful when the business owner is ready to make decisions about its direction.
I work with business owners, founders and partnerships who want to establish a clearer strategic foundation for their brand.
We are likely to be a fit if:
You are the owner or lead decision-maker.
You see your brand as a business asset, not simply a marketing expense.
You are willing to make decisions that create greater focus.
If your situation is changing, may be Starting Out, Under Pressure, or Expanding. The Strategic Insight can help identify where strategic attention may be required.
30 years of commercial practice across brand, positioning and communication.
The best way to understand how Flying Lizard works is to see the thinking applied to real businesses. Explore examples of brand strategy in practice, including the challenges, decisions, implementation and outcomes.
Their thinking provides an important foundation for how I understand brand, positioning, communication, and commercial value.
I do not apply their ideas as a template. I use them as principles, then interpret them through 30 years of practical experience working with businesses, markets, customers, and commercial decisions.
Evidence of Strategic Focus
Trusted by business owners to develop strategy and turn it into practical business change.
★★★★★
“Daynes‘ origination, ideas, and ability to understand and adapt to our needs during the entire project has been outstanding.”
Robert Clark, Group Manager Economic Development & Property, DCC, Dunedin, NZ.
★★★★★
“Dayne provided creative solutions that addressed our specific design needs. The material he produced helped us win awards and secure new customers.”
Sophie Barker, Marketing Manager at Otago Peninsula Trust, Otago, NZ.
★★★★★
“We enjoyed working with Dayne and his team for the year and we will do even more together“
