Imagine this. You’re standing in a supermarket aisle, your gaze sweeping over the array of options. What determines your choice? Price, quality, familiarity, or perhaps the compelling narrative that one brand weaves?
Welcome to the magic of brand positioning, the art of nestling your brand in the consumer’s mind, the science of strategic advantage. But remember, it’s not about being everything to everyone, but about being something unique and significant to someone.
Table of Contents
"Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect."
The Resonance of the Brand, The Constancy of the North Star
Your brand is not just a business entity. Instead, envision it as a living, breathing personality, akin to the North Star in the celestial sphere. It’s more than a mere set of colors, shapes, words, or offerings—it’s a beacon that guides your customers in their journey, a compass that navigates them through the expanse of the market.
The North Star stands out for its consistent visibility, always holding its position in the sky, serving as a faithful guide to lost voyagers. In the same vein, your brand positioning plays a similar role. It’s the anchor that grounds your business in the ever-changing, tumultuous sea of the marketplace.
Just as sailors navigate the expansive seas by orienting themselves to the North Star, so should your customers be able to navigate their needs, desires, and expectations by orienting themselves to your brand. Your brand positioning, therefore, becomes a unique identity, a differentiator, a guiding light that sets you apart from the others.
The Spectrum of Touchpoints, The Spectrum of Constellations
The North Star isn’t confined to one part of the sky—it’s a constant across the vast expanse of the celestial sphere. In the same way, your brand’s positioning isn’t confined to a single aspect of your business. It permeates every nook and cranny, every function and process. It sets the tone for product development, inspires the voice for customer service, forms the foundation for the digital persona, and frames the narrative for in-store experiences.
When you’re crafting a new product or service, your brand positioning should be the yardstick against which all decisions are measured. It’s not just about what your business can create, but whether that creation aligns with your brand’s established position and furthers its narrative.
Similarly, customer service is a potent touchpoint that can reinforce your brand position. The interactions between your customer service representatives and your customers should embody the values and personality of your brand. From the language they use to the tone they set, every element should resonate with the brand’s position.
Your brand’s digital presence, too, is a crucial canvas where the colors of your brand position come to life. Your website, social media profiles, online advertisements—each platform should echo the same brand narrative, the same values, the same promises.
Lastly, even in-store experiences should be meticulously crafted to exude your brand positioning. The ambience, the staff behavior, the product arrangement, the checkout process—every detail contributes to the overall brand story.
In essence, your brand positioning—your North Star—should serve as a guiding principle across the multifaceted constellations of your business. It isn’t a mere component—it’s the ethos that courses through your business, illuminating each function and process with a purpose, a direction, and a shine.
The Invisible Beacon: The Power of Subtlety in a Sea of Distractions
In today’s world, the marketplace isn’t just crowded—it’s a veritable maelstrom of brands, products, and messages. Each one tries to outshout the other, each vying for a moment of the consumer’s attention.
It’s not just the product on the supermarket shelf next to yours that is your competition, but every brand, every message, every ad, and every piece of content that tries to steer your customer’s attention away from you.
In this turbulent sea of information overload, your brand must serve not as another shouty sailor, but as a subtle, unseen lighthouse, a steady guiding light that cuts through the storm and guides the customer safely to shore.
The power of your brand lies in its ability to influence the customer’s journey, not through brash insistence, but through quiet persuasion.
"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself."
Navigating Consumer Psychology: Your Compass to Effective Positioning
Positioning your brand as this unseen lighthouse, however, demands a profound understanding of the psyche of your customers. The waves of their desires, aspirations, fears, and needs are the turbulent waters your brand needs to navigate.
Begin by asking, what are their unmet needs? What gaps do they perceive in the offerings currently available to them? These are the uncharted territories that your brand has the opportunity to explore.
Next, consider their aspirations. What are their dreams, hopes, and desires? Your brand needs to align with these aspirations, becoming a vessel that promises to carry them closer to their goals.
Most importantly, you need to understand why they would choose your brand to fulfill these needs and aspirations. What unique value can you provide? How do you resonate with them on an emotional level? How can your brand not just meet their needs but also empower their dreams?
When you position your brand as an unseen lighthouse in the stormy sea of the marketplace, you are not merely creating another product or service. You are building an emotional connect, a subtle influence, a beacon of trust and reliability.
You are creating a brand that doesn’t just satisfy needs but also empowers aspirations—a brand that illuminates the consumer’s path and guides them to the shore of their dreams.
Embracing Your Purple Cow
Take a moment to reflect upon Seth Godin’s enlightening metaphor of the Purple Cow. Picture a pasture brimming with similar-looking, monotonous brown cows, and then imagine, standing in stark contrast, a Purple Cow. Instantly, it captures your attention, it breaks the monotony, it’s remarkable.
That, in essence, is what your brand positioning should achieve. It’s the unique hue that you add to your brand, separating it from the sea of browns, lending it a remarkable identity, and carving a distinct perception in the minds of the consumers.
Consider the world of coffee as an example. There’s a myriad of brands offering the beloved caffeine fix, each boasting their unique blends and tastes. Yet, amidst this bustling crowd, how does your coffee stand out? That’s where your Purple Cow comes in.
Your brand positioning could revolve around offering not just a coffee, but an ethically-sourced, environmentally-conscious coffee experience. This isn’t just about the beans or the flavor anymore; it’s about the value your brand brings to the table.
It’s about how you source your beans from small, local farmers, ensuring they get a fair price for their produce. It’s about how you use biodegradable packaging, reducing the carbon footprint of your product. It’s about how your brand contributes to sustainability initiatives, making every sip of your coffee a step towards a greener planet.
In the world of brown coffee brands, your brand becomes the Purple Cow – unique, remarkable, and ethically conscious. This isn’t just about selling more coffee; it’s about building a relationship with your consumers, resonating with their values, and meeting their needs in a way that no other brand does.
It’s your shade of purple, your strategic edge, your compelling competitive advantage. It’s what makes your brand not just a choice, but the choice in the consumer’s journey.
Painting Your Purple Cow: The Brand Positioning Canvas
The journey towards a standout brand positioning, your very own Purple Cow, can be simplified and structured using a methodical approach: The Brand Positioning Canvas. This is your palette of elements, the hues you’ll need to paint a clear, compelling picture of your brand. Here’s a closer look at the elements:
1. Customer Insights:
Your journey begins with a deep dive into the world of your customer. Engage with real-time data, hold candid conversations, observe their behavior patterns, study market trends, and most importantly, listen. This will allow you to comprehend their needs, desires, pain points, and what truly matters to them.
2. Brand Purpose:
Next, ask yourself the big question – why does your brand exist beyond the obvious answer of generating profits? Your brand purpose is the heart of your organization, your raison d’être. It should resonate with your target audience’s values and aspirations, thus creating an emotional connection.
3. Unique Value Proposition (UVP):
This is the quintessential element that sets your brand apart. Your UVP is the unique blend of benefits that only your brand can offer. It’s what makes your coffee eco-friendly, your apparel brand empowering, your software user-friendly. It’s your defining attribute, your Purple Cow.
4. Brand Personality:
Think of your brand as a person. How would you describe its characteristics? Is it rebellious or conservative? Is it adventurous or safety-conscious? Is it sophisticated or casual? These human characteristics make your brand relatable and influence how customers perceive and interact with your brand.
5. Brand Promise:
Now, condense the essence of your brand into a concise statement – your brand promise. This is what customers can consistently expect from your brand. It’s the commitment that binds you and your audience.
6. Reasons to Believe (RTBs):
Your brand promise, however compelling, needs credibility. RTBs are concrete proofs that support your brand promise, making it believable and trustworthy. It could be your years of experience, endorsements, awards, or customer testimonials.
Once you’ve painted this canvas, you have a strategic framework, a guiding principle for every decision your business makes. This positioning should guide your product development, dictate the tone and message of your marketing campaigns, inspire your content creation, shape your customer experiences, and even influence your internal culture.
It’s your guiding North Star, your unseen lighthouse, your vibrant Purple Cow, and most importantly, it’s your roadmap to creating a brand that leaves a lasting impact.
"If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand."
The Iterative Art of Brand Positioning
Brand positioning isn’t a masterpiece to be completed and forgotten. It’s not a static portrait but a dynamic, evolving piece of art that needs to be revisited, reassessed, and if needed, repainted. It’s an iterative process that aligns with the dynamic market trends, customer needs, and the competitive landscape.
1. Constant Customer Exploration:
The first thing to understand is that the world of your customers is in constant flux. Their needs, preferences, and aspirations change over time, influenced by evolving social trends, technological advancements, and economic conditions.
Therefore, the exercise of customer insighting isn’t a one-off event. It’s a recurring process where you continuously dive into the data, engage with customers, and stay abreast of their changing world. This iterative understanding enables your brand to remain relevant and resonate with your customers.
2. Evaluating Your UVP:
As you reassess the changing consumer needs, it’s equally critical to scrutinize your Unique Value Proposition. Does it still set you apart from the competition? Does it still resonate with your customers? Remember, the uniqueness of your offering is not an inherent quality; it’s relative to the market dynamics and customer needs.
3. Recalibrating Your Brand Promise:
Your brand promise should reflect the evolving realities of your brand and your customer. If the market shifts or your brand evolves, your brand promise should be recalibrated accordingly to stay relevant and credible. The brand promise is your pledge to your customers. Keep it realistic, keep it meaningful, and most importantly, keep it aligned with their expectations.
Remember, flexibility is not about being inconsistent but about adapting to the ever-changing dynamics of the marketplace. It’s about pivoting when necessary, just as many successful brands have done.
Spotify, for instance, broadened its positioning from a music app to an all-encompassing audio platform, offering podcasts and audio books. Netflix reinvented itself from a DVD rental service to a global streaming service and a creator of original content. These brands embraced the iterative art of positioning and turned it into their competitive advantage.
So, be open to the process of learning, unlearning, and relearning your strategies. Be ready to revisit your canvas and paint new strokes as needed. Because in the dynamic world of marketing, those who adapt, thrive.
The Brand Positioning Journey: An Endless Odyssey of Creation and Refinement
Embarking on the brand positioning journey is akin to setting sail on a vast ocean, a voyage of discovery and creation. It’s not a race against competitors; it’s a creative endeavor aimed at molding perceptions, curating experiences, and cultivating enduring connections.
1. Crafting Perceptions:
Brand positioning is an exercise in perception management. It’s about shaping how your customers perceive your brand, infusing it with a distinctive identity that stands out in the cluttered marketplace. It’s about creating a mental picture in the customer’s mind, an image that associates your brand with certain values, emotions, and experiences.
2. Curating Experiences:
At its core, brand positioning is experiential. It’s about defining what kind of experience your brand delivers at every touchpoint – be it the product itself, the customer service, the advertising, or even the after-sales engagement. Every interaction should reflect your brand’s position and promise, ensuring a cohesive and memorable experience for the customers.
3. Cultivating Connections:
A well-positioned brand moves beyond transactional interactions to form meaningful connections with its customers. It’s about fostering relationships based on trust, relevance, and value. This emotional bonding turns customers into advocates, amplifying your brand’s reach and reputation through the powerful medium of word-of-mouth.
So, as you set sail on this journey, remember, there’s no fixed destination. Brand positioning is not a one-time achievement; it’s an ongoing process of refinement. The marketplace is dynamic, customer needs are fluid, and competition is ever-evolving. Your North Star today might not hold the same relevance tomorrow. Therefore, the journey entails continuously redefining your brand’s position, perpetually recalibrating your North Star.
Moreover, as you journey through this fascinating world of brand positioning, bear in mind that the practical application of marketing theories is seldom straightforward or neatly structured. It’s complex and chaotic, demanding iterative strategies and adaptive thinking. It’s an exciting exploration that blends art and science, creativity and analytics. But isn’t that what makes the journey so captivating and fulfilling?
So, as you strategize your brand’s position, embrace the complexity, savor the process, and celebrate the small wins. Here’s to your journey of creation, connection, and continuous learning.
Happy strategizing!
About The Author:
David is a creative director and marketing professional with a wealth of expertise in marketing strategy, branding strategy and growing businesses. He is a founding partner of a branding and marketing agency based in New York and has a Bachelors Degree in Communication from UWE.
Over David’s 25+ year career in the the world of branding and marketing, he has worked on strategy projects for companies like Coca-Cola, Intercontinental Hotels, AMC Theaters, LEGO, Intuit and The American Cancer Society.
David has also published over 250 articles on topics related to marketing strategy, branding Identity, entrepreneurship and business management.
You can follow David’s writing over at medium.com: medium.com/@dplayer