‘Positioning’. The bedrock of a brand.
To continue my theme of keyword dense brand related topics, I’ve chosen to ask the question — ‘How do we differentiate ourselves?’ How do we stand out from everyone else? And did I just ask two questions or simply repeat the same one twice?
If you think about it, every industry has and uses the same language when they deliver their services. We’re all guilty of it (yes you at the back). We use the same keywords, the same language deliver the same service touchpoints. It’s unavoidable to a degree. It’s familiar and comfortable and it’s what’s instinctive when we think of the industry we’re in. If you consider just your core message, how you communicate with your customers, it doesn’t matter what you do or how you say it, there’s always going to be a degree of crossover with your competitors.
With that said, there’s always be an opportunity to do it differently. But most don’t. Strip away your brand, your logo, and if you just look at your core message, then could you confidently say that your customers would be able to distinguish you from your competitors. I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.
Every company copies its competitors to a degree. Isn’t that the very nature of rivalry? Square up to your opponent? But imitation isn’t flattery, it’s just flat out lazy. Instead, in a bid to create some distinction, we rely on branding to become the key differentiator. We think they need to ‘look’ different, when actually we need to ‘be’ different.
More worryingly, I’ve found that service-based businesses are under the illusion that they can’t differentiate themselves in the same way that a business that has a tangible thing or product to sell could. They dismiss services, skills, intellect, or knowledge as being a ‘thing’ of value, a commodity. If you can’t put it in a box, then you can’t slap a brand on it. They’ll talk about how their industry just doesn’t ‘do branding’, but what they fail to realize is that they already have one that their industry has pre-assigned to them.
Most sectors look and are branded the same. They tend to use the same fonts, imagery and predetermined brand colors. It’s like they all got together one evening and negotiated the gamut of the spectrum. Healthcare gets green, fashion gets black, technology gets orange, food chains get red and business gets blue (or pink if you’re in India so I’ve been told) and charities tend to use a clash of all of the above and/or whatever’s leftover.
So yes, like it or not, you do ‘do branding’. The question is do you want a brand by default or by design?
It all comes back to being different. In a way, ‘different’ needs to be your brand. If you can’t differentiate yourself from your competition, then don’t expect your customers to either. If your sales pitch is lip-syncing with your competitors, then the only deciding factor you’ve left your customer with is cost-based, and you will find yourself in a price turf war where the only winner will be your customer. Not a happy headspace.
If you’re offering the same services, using the same dialogue, following the same service models, ticking the boxes then you’re essentially just a carbon copy of your competitors. Just another tin of beans, next to a tin of beans on a shelf of beans, leaving your customers asking how much are they willing to pay to have beans for supper.
So do you want to be a ‘branded’ tin of beans or do you want to become ‘a brand’ of beans? And so this is positioning in a nutshell (or a tin). Your positioning is the bedrock of your brand. It defines who you are, sets you apart from your competitors, and enables your customers to relate to you and value you.
So what about ‘brand value’? How can a brand have value? And what about ‘brand equity’? All those top brands seem to have it in spades. How do you get brand equity? Well, they didn’t acquire it by just being the biggest or the best — they were different. Just different enough that their customers could identify and relate to their brand, the way it interacts, walks and talks to them. You achieve brand equity dizzy heights when your customers have developed such a deep affinity with your brands that it occupies pride of place in their everyday sub-conscious.
If you say ‘bottled water’ to someone the chances are they’ll think of ‘Evian’. But why? How did this happen? Surely it’s just water? OK, it’s a valuable commodity, we all need it, fish swim in it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in short supply given that it can be found sloshing around 75% of the globe’s surface? Even their advertising ‘It’s water the way nature intended’ isn’t selling us anything other than ‘natural water’. I’m pretty sure in a blind test no one could distinguish Evian from two other generic brands of water and yet the price disparity between Evian and their competitors is staggering. Ever bought it in a restaurant?
Evian isn’t selling just any water, they’re selling their brand of water, their way.
So how can you position yourself ‘different’ rather than ‘branding’ yourself different? Well, some brands specialize rather than generalize. This goes against every natural instinct you have when building your business. Offer ‘everything’ to ‘everyone’. Easy. Get those boxes ticked. But think about this for a moment. Consider the brand perception of someone who positions themselves as a specialist. As a specialist you’re basically bragging that you’re more informed, you have more knowledge to offer and that can be a rather attractive brand proposition in the knowledge-hungry world we live in. And you’d expect a specialist to earn more than a generalist and so there’s no price war here. Would you have less of the market? Well if you build a reputation of doing that one thing better than the rest of the world, then that’s a lot of customer reach. And as for the competition, I imagine there are far fewer specialists than generalists, which in turn means there’s a greater demand? So essentially by being a brand that specializes, you’ve not only found your brand’s positioning, but you’ve narrowed down your competition, fully justified your higher price tag, and established yourself as a heavy hitter within your industry. You’re on your way to developing some brand equity. Nice!
Specialism is just one value proposition of many (I’ll leave you to google the rest) that you can leverage or simply use to clarify your brand positioning. And if specializing isn’t your thing, then look for your value proposition within the very same value you’re creating for your clients. It’s silly to say it, but isn’t that the most important thing to be clear about? If you honestly don’t understand the value your brand creates for your customers, then you can’t possibly begin to build a brand to engage with them.
Clearly define your brand’s value proposition. Value can take many forms. It can be emotional, physical, social, but it’s essentially going to be your customer’s bottom line. Your brand’s value proposition should be a promise to deliver this to them.
Whenever I meet a new client to take a creative brief, they’re never prepared to answer the question ‘What makes you different and why should your customers care?’ It sounds easy, but for startups and even more so mature businesses, it’s the hardest button to button. It’s difficult for most to define, let alone commit their brand to.
So look for your value proposition. Don’t tell me you don’t have one — you do. Dig deep and you’ll soon hit your brand’s bedrock. See what I did there?
