Brand Positioning/ Repositioning
By Brad VanAuken

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Brand Positioning 101  |  Top Reasons to Reposition a Brand  |  The Sources of Brand Differentiation

Brand Positioning 101

Perhaps the most important brand management activity is positioning the brand properly. A well-positioned brand addresses important consumer benefits in unique and compelling ways. It also creates an emotional connection to the consumer. Finally, it provides flexibility for future growth (beyond current product and service categories).

The first step in positioning a brand is in-depth research. The research should provide you with the following:

• Profound consumer insight
• A thorough knowledge of the competitive set
• An understanding of consumer benefits (by segment)

You should identify functional, emotional, experiential and self-expressive consumer benefits. Of those benefits, you should understand which are “cost of entry benefits” and which are “differentiating benefits.”

In-depth qualitative research, including laddering, projective and ethnographic techniques may be required to achieve the desired insight.

Some would argue that a brand could and should only own one key benefit in the consumer's mind (Al Reis) while others would claim that creating the right mix of unique brand benefits creates a more powerful marketplace position (Martin Callé's Brand Dimensioning ®).

Regardless, the ideal benefit to claim has the following three qualities: (1) it is extremely important to the target consumer, (2) your organization is uniquely suited to delivering it and (3) competitors are not adequately addressing it.

We believe there are four key components to brand positioning:

• Target consumer – the primary audience to whom the brand is designed to appeal
• Brand essence – the “heart and soul” of the brand
• Brand promise – a promise of relevant differentiating benefits
• Brand personality – adjectives that describe the brand as if it were a person

Together, these components define the brand. They are codified in a simple format that provides direction not only for marketing communication and the brand identity standards and systems, but also for all of the organization's activities.

Some people would say that the best a corporate brand might hope to own is the leadership position in an industry. The brand promise would read as follows: “[Company] is the quality, innovation leader in the [industry.]” I believe that is a very weak positioning. The strongest corporate brands own something more than that in consumers' minds. For instance, Disney owns “fun family entertainment” while Nike owns “genuine athletic performance.” Nicor owns “unconditional primal warmth” while Hallmark owns “caring shared.”

BrandForward uses the following brand promise form: “Only [brand] delivers [benefit] to [target consumer].” This form is simple but powerful in its economy.

A powerful brand position should be:

• Believable, understandable, unique and compelling
• Aspirationally attainable
• Admirable and endearing
• Difficult to emulate
• Timeless and enduring
• Extendable

Positioning a brand is complicated. It is an art and a science and is not likely to be well understood or appreciated by operationally oriented people in your organization. It is, however critical to your organization's long-term success. Position your brand with great care.

Top Reasons to Reposition a Brand

Brand repositioning is necessary when one or more of the following conditions exist:

• Your brand has a bad, confusing or nonexistent image.
• The primary benefit your brand “owns” has evolved from a differentiating benefit to a cost-of-entry benefit.
• Your organization is significantly altering its strategic direction.
• Your organization is entering new businesses and the current positioning is no longer appropriate.
• A new competitor with a superior value proposition enters your industry.
• Competition has usurped your brand's position or rendered it ineffectual.
• Your organization has acquired a very powerful proprietary advantage that must be worked into the brand positioning.
• Corporate culture renewal dictates at least a revision of the brand personality

You are broadening your brand to appeal to additional consumers or consumer need segments for whom the current brand positioning won't work. (This should be a “red flag.” This action could dilute the brand's meaning, make the brand less appealing to current customers or even alienate current customers.)

The Sources of Brand Differentiation

If properly designed, brands should promise relevant differentiated benefits to their target customers. Carefully choosing the most powerful benefits will not only result in brand preference, but brand insistence. That is, the brand will be perceived to be the only viable solution for the customer's need. Put another way, the customer will not pursue substitutes if the brand is not available. The brand establishes a consideration set of one.

The optimal benefits for a brand to claim are those that are (1) very important to the target customer, (2) supported by organizational strengths and (3) not being addressed by the competition. Ideally, the brand tries to ‘own' only one or two key benefits, as that is all a customer will remember. The benefits should be understandable, believable, unique and compelling.

A brand's promise can be stated as follows:

• Only [brand] delivers [unique differentiating benefit] to [target customer].

Following are the most common sources of brand differentiation [unique differentiating benefits]:

• The brand stands for something important to the customer
• Its values align with the customer's values
• It reinforces the customer's self image or how the customer aspires to be perceived
• It can serve as a ‘badge' or other form of self-expression
• It possesses admirable qualities
• It provides unique or superior customer service
• It delivers a unique product purchase or usage experience
• It is entertaining
• It delivers superior performance
• It is venerated, has heritage (continuity, trustworthy leader, since …)
• It is the technology leader
• It has noble aims/values
• It tells an engaging story about itself
• Its founder has unique, admirable qualities
• It was first—a pioneer—in its market
• It is the most popular brand with the most customers or the largest market share
• It is the category innovator
• It is perceived to possess positive momentum
• It is the ‘next' big thing, using ‘next generation' technology
• It is the most convenient or easy to find and use
• It focuses on a particular customer segment and has become an expert in meeting that segment's needs
• It comes from a country or region that is known for its excellence in the brand's product category
• It is the leading expert/specialist in a particular area
• It is the choice of experts
• It delivers the best overall value for the price
• Its products are crafted with great care by hand
• Its products are completely natural/organic with no artificial additives
• Its products have a unique, unrivalled styling/packaging
• It is quintessential – it defines its category

The brand promise should be reinforced with proof points to substantiate its claim, that is, to make it believable. The following are the most common types of proof points or ‘reasons to believe':

• Expert endorsements
• Top ratings by independent authorities
• Industry analyst reports
• Third party certifications
• ‘Blue chip' customer list
• What 9 out of 10 experts prefer/use
• Customer testimonials
• Leadership in any of the following:
• Number of customers
• Number of locations
• Number of transactions
• Overall sales
• Market share
• Side by side tests with competitive brands
• Looks/feels/performs different(ly)
• Before and after comparisons
• Year of founding (since…)
• Patented technology
• Secret/magic ingredients
• Superior ingredients
• Ingredient brands
• Unique process
• Extensive publicity
• Unconditional, money-back guarantee

I often hear people say ‘our product is a commodity' or ‘price is all that matters in our category' or ‘all of the viable positions in our market have been taken.' Don't let anyone convince you that your brand can not be differentiated. After all, chicken, bananas, vodka and even water have been differentiated.