When it comes to building a great brand, just a logo or a tagline won’t work. Consumers need to see how you differentiate yourself from other competitors in your niche. That is brand positioning. Your positioning determines how your customers connect with your brand and informs them why they need to pick you over other companies.
And, that’s why brand positioning requires a strategy. You need to establish that your brand is something worth thinking about. It’s more about how you do it rather than what you do. You need to define your positioning so that your brand is distinct from other brands. Only the right methodology will enable you to create and present your distinctive position.
What methodology works? Humanity is the heart of distinctiveness! You can make your customers view your brand as unique by associating feelings, emotions, sentiments, and traits with it. Giving it a human touch by appealing to human qualities.
Why distinctive positioning is needed
Your distinctive positioning creates a bond between your brand and your customer. It will be that friend of your customer who stays in their subconscious mind to remind them of the uniqueness of your brand and how emotionally connected they are to your brand.
Adobe
Adobe, the multinational B2B company that specializes in software, positions its brand around digital experiences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in its mission to inspire and move the world forward with the next generation of storytelling, Adobe launched the #HonorHeroes campaign. The campaign video featured stunning digital portraits of front-line heroes who were individually picked by the community members to honor them. This campaign had a powerful emotional impact at a crucial time when the whole world needed compassion and empathy.
Adobe also backed its campaign with practical impact by granting access to Adobe Creative Cloud for remote students, launching its Diverse Voices platform to amplify the voices of all underrepresented voices in the world, and promoting women creators through Women Create Wednesday. Adobe’s tagline, “Creativity for all” was not just its marketing strategy but also its guiding principle. Its brand positioning as a creative company rooted deeply in innovation, compassion, and empathy is powerful enough to resonate into the post-pandemic future.
Disney World
When it comes to B2C organizations, consider Disney World. Its brand positioning is around happiness as it is a fun, magical experience for children and families. And, people associate it with happiness as they are happy at Disney World. Even consumers who experienced Disney in their childhood have a nostalgic attachment to it. They fondly remember their happy experience and return to Disney to be reminded of it. They don’t want a new Disney or something similar, they want the Disney that they loved as a child. They are emotionally, mentally, and socially attached to Disney. And, that is the power of brand positioning.
With innovation evolving at light speed, not all companies are the “firsts” or “only” in their niche. While some companies are truly pioneers, most are entering an existing market with an improved product or developing a product based on a future vision. That’s where distinctive positioning plays an important role. You need to make your brand more appealing to your audience.
Branding is more than a logo
A logo helps to identify a brand. It makes it easy to distinguish between countless brands that we come across every day. A logo in itself does not connect with us, but the experience we had with the brand in question does. Over a period of time, we get to associate the logo with the perceptions and experiences of that brand. As we live with these brands, the logo takes a deeper meaning that is unique to us. That deeper meaning is branding and its impact on us.
Branding is the entire ecosystem of your business that creates a place in the hearts and minds of your customers. Disney’s brand impact comes from its customers’ experiences with amusement parks, interactive games, theatrical performances, and animations for years. Disney is true to its mission of entertaining, informing, and inspiring people around the globe. The brand is dedicated and consistent in fulfilling its mission for decades. A logo or a tagline cannot achieve that.
Craft a meaningful brand narrative
The elements that make up your brand are countless, not just the logo. Color and typography lend a visual touch. Voice and tone define the mission and vision. Customer experience defines whether your brand has a distinctive impact on the audience. Say, if we close our eyes and imagine walking into Disney World, the logo is not what we imagine but the experience.
Similarly, all elements of your brand need to work in harmony like an orchestra. Your customers can hear or sense that harmony and embrace how your brand makes them feel. Every business has a brand. What defines it is whether it is by default or by design. When you intentionally and carefully curate and deliver it, that's a brand at work.
So, carefully evaluate your customers to craft a strategy that makes your brand appealing and distinctive to the audience. Only then you can position your brand uniquely in the market.