Brand Positioning Strategy: How To Gain Mindshare!

Understanding the importance of brand positioning

The marketplace is noisy. Brands are being created at breakneck speed. Much more than people can keep up with and each brand is creating more and more content to catch the dwindling attention of the target audience.

In such an environment, how do you make your brand stand out and capture the attention of your target market? How to create the right kind of impact that leads to sales and revenues, and market share growth?

Traditional marketing methods are becoming ineffective as people are starting to tune out advertising messages. Outbound marketing methods are quickly starting to create the opposite effect of what the brands intend as people start to hate interruption and being sold to. The dawn of inbound marketing is here. Enhancing your brand image through content strategy is more important than ever!

This is where the concept of brand positioning comes into play.

What is brand positioning?

Brand positioning is the process of creating a unique position or place in your target customer’s minds that raises your brand over the competition and creates a distinct brand anchor that the customer will come to associate your brand with. This positioning will help move your brand to the top rung of the ladder of your competitors in your customer’s mind.

To give an analogy, imagine that your various competitors are the rungs of a ladder in your customer’s mind. Your brand’s position on the ladder is the position in your customer’s mind. When the customer requires a product or service that your brand offers, they reach out to the ladder to make their buying decision.

Who do they choose and why?

Being able to answer this question is critical to the success of your brand and your business. But answering this question is not that easy or simple.

All brands have a position whether they have actively tried to gain that position or not. If your brand is not actively working towards creating a position then your competitors will determine where you are positioned.

Blind spots in your brand strategy or messaging could lead to a positioning that puts your brand on a downward spiral with loss of sales and revenue. Or if you are a new brand, it would lead to a massive struggle to get any market share at all.

Developing a unique brand positioning strategy

To address the problem of having a strong position in the minds of your customers, your brand needs a brand positioning strategy. A strategy by definition is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.

The keyword here is long-term.

And that is where most brand owners bog down. Once you believe that a strategy is for quick and immediate results or gains, you will lose the benefits of a strategy.

Creating a brand positioning strategy involves four core activities: an in-depth market analysis, a thorough competitive analysis, defining your brand value proposition, and creating the positioning strategy itself.

A brand positioning strategy should be organic and should evolve over time as you start implementing the strategy and track the results.

In-depth market analysis

To create a brand positioning strategy you have to start with an in-depth market analysis. Not just peripheral market demographics but rather an in-depth look into all aspects of the market landscape.

Start with the market characteristics. Is the market growing, stable or contracting? Are the customers actively searching for the product or service that your brand offers? Do the customers have a problem or issue that needs solving but have not realised that your product or service is the answer?

Market lifecycle stage

Where is the market in terms of its lifecycle stage? There are typically four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Understanding which stage your market is in determines how you should position.

In the introductory stage, you can try to become a pioneer by educating your target audience through a robust content strategy and positioning yourself as an authority. Focus on educating the market about how your solution is better than current alternatives. But don’t market your brand too aggressively at this point.

In the growth stage, the market is expanding rapidly and new competitors are flooding in. Your target audience already knows about the problem and the available solutions. This is where you position yourself as best of breed and try to convince prospects that your brand should be selected.

In the maturity stage, the market is saturated with competitors vying for the same flat pie. Consumers most probably already have what your company sells. Position based on economies of scale and pricing. Your messaging should talk about how efficient and cost-effective your offering is.

In the decline stage, the market is dwindling as consumers stop buying or move to newer alternatives. If you are trying to enter a market in decline, I would ask you to think twice. The positioning may involve offering discounts and price slashing, or going the innovation route and moving your business to greener pastures.

Market segments and personas

Once you have done the lifecycle analysis, you get to one of the most critical aspects of any brand positioning strategy: creating market segments and buyer personas. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this step.

Market segmentation is critical because it enables you to understand the various opportunities and threats of that market. If you do not segment your market then you end up having a scattershot approach to your brand messaging and marketing. You would be putting stuff out there and seeing what sticks. While this may work for some, it often wastes valuable time and resources for startups and small businesses.

The main segmentation approaches include demographics (age, gender, marital status, occupation, income, and so on), geographic (where target customers live), lifestyle (hobbies and interests), behavioral (buying and spending patterns), and benefit segmentation (which benefits of your product the target market values most).

Conducting competitor research and analysis

One of my pet peeves is entrepreneurs and startup founders thinking they know their competitors without actually undertaking a thorough competitive analysis. Knowing your competitors doesn’t just mean knowing who they are and a vague idea of their offerings. It means knowing how they are positioning themselves, their messaging strategy, and a lot more.

Without knowing what mindshare your competitors own in the market, you may go for the same mindshare, which is difficult if your competition has done a good job of their positioning. The result is that your brand wastes time, resources, and money chasing after a position that you cannot take in the consumer’s mind.

To give you a really simple example, look back at how Coca Cola tried to take market share away from Red Bull by introducing its energy drink while trying to occupy the positioning that Red Bull had. But Red Bull owned a significant mindshare that could not be taken over due to their unique brand messaging and marketing, which perfectly aligned with their target audience. Coca Cola tried three times already with Sprite Recharge, Lift Plus, and Burn, all of which failed.

Look at the competitive landscape and work out the strengths of each competitor. Be sure to look at your direct competitors (the obvious ones offering similar products), indirect competitors (companies whose products could solve the same problem even if they are different from yours), and potential future competitors (usually large corporations who may enter your market segment, like Amazon). Then evaluate them based on strengths and weaknesses using metrics such as quality, price, efficiency, brand strategy, messaging, marketing campaigns, and mindshare.

Define brand value proposition

Most businesses do not really understand or are not even aware of this concept. Understanding it and applying it to your business will help your business ascend to the next level. You can read more about the concept of brand value proposition in this article.

Once you have identified and evaluated your competition and figured out their positioning strategy, it is time to look inwards and decide what value your brand brings to the market.

There are three types of value propositions. Product innovation focus means your brand is all about innovation and claims the position of a pioneer. Efficiency and pricing focus means your brand operates with efficiency and can offer competitive pricing. And superb customer service focus means that even if you cannot differentiate your product or service, you can gain mindshare through the customer experience.

If possible, review your competitors’ value propositions. This may be tricky since their messaging is often noisy and the proposition may not be clearly visible. But scan through their websites and social media channels and you may be able to work out which of these three they are focusing on.

Create the positioning strategy

If you have done all the above steps diligently, you should now be in a great position to create a winning brand positioning strategy. For a detailed guide on writing your positioning statement, including templates and examples, see how to write a powerful brand positioning statement.

There are several ways to position your brand. Pricing could be high-end like luxury brands (Louis Vuitton, Gucci) or cheaper end (Zara, Mango). Customer service is a big one that can really make a difference in gaining mindshare and market share (Zappos is the classic example). Performance means promising to outperform the competition (BMW, Porsche). Convenience appeals to people who value ease (Starbucks, McDonalds). And lifestyle positioning will gain you a cult following and great mindshare (Nike, Apple, Burberry).

Whatever you choose, make sure you think through all angles and then embrace that positioning fully. A blue ocean strategy can be especially powerful when it allows you to create uncontested market space rather than fighting over the same positioning your competitors already own.

Quality, on the other hand, is not a great positioning angle on its own because customers expect high quality no matter what. You need something more specific.

Case study: SeaWorld

SeaWorld announced that they would be phasing out the traditional Orca shows that have been their bread and butter and stop its killer whale breeding program. For over 51 years, SeaWorld had used the Orca as its brand icon and logo design and built up the entire business on the back of killer whale shows. With heavy pressure from animal rights activists and the release of the film Blackfish in 2013 which brought to light the lives of Orcas in captivity, SeaWorld finally decided to pivot its brand positioning strategy.

Brand positioning is all about the emotional connection that you can form with your ideal customers.

For SeaWorld, the connection was the cute yet awe-inspiring image of the Orca, a magnificent creature belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. SeaWorld’s core values and purpose are to protect animals in the wild and inspire their guests to join them in this critical mission. This may have been true at the beginning and helped position SeaWorld as an educational entertainment oriented theme park. In fact, SeaWorld may be responsible for making the hitherto feared Orca a much-loved animal around the world because people saw these animals up close and learned more about them.

“When SeaWorld opened its doors more than 50 years ago, killer whales were feared and even hunted. Now, they are among the most beloved marine mammals on the planet thanks, in part, to the inspirational encounters we’ve provided to more than 400 million guests,” says SeaWorld’s website.

But that positioning had to change. Once people learned about how social and intelligent these animals were, they felt more inclined not to visit the shows where these powerful creatures were doing circus tricks and were kept in small enclosed pools for most of their long lives. Animal activists and the Blackfish documentary raised awareness of the suffering these animals endure.

So SeaWorld finally decided to throw in the towel and in a letter to the LA Times, Joel Manby, the president and CEO, announced the phasing out of the traditional shows and stopping the Orca breeding program.

The importance of brand positioning

By ditching the iconic Orca brand, how is SeaWorld going to create the same kind of emotional connection with its target audience which translates into millions of dollars in revenue? SeaWorld looks like they want to position themselves as an educational organization. A place people can come to learn about marine life. But is that a good positioning strategy? People go to SeaWorld seeking thrills. Would they be that entertained or thrilled by going to an aquarium?

Any organization that faces a crisis to its brand or its industry is faced with the daunting prospect of pivoting its positioning or succumbing to the threats and dying. This has happened to many brands in industries under pressure: accident claims in the UK, certain insurance sectors, fast food, sugary food and drink. Brands have had to reinvent themselves, pivot, and tell a different story to survive.

Walking away from a brand icon that carried SeaWorld for decades is difficult. Telling the right story is important. I am not sure the educational angle is such a good idea. I am sure the great marketing and branding minds at SeaWorld have explored all options before going down this route and only time can tell if it will succeed.

Brand positioning is a critical element to any business and it pays to spend time and effort in building a strong brand.

It not only allows a brand to rise above the competition and dominate a market but it also creates an opportunity to tell the right story. Pivoting a brand positioning can be very difficult and that is why it is important to craft the positioning carefully with careful thought of the future and any potential changes to the market segment or consumer behavior. Any such future threats need to be considered carefully and if possible pivots need to be baked into the brand strategy.

Positioning in practice: industry examples

The automobile market

When it comes to cars, what is the difference between a Toyota and a Lexus? One is positioned as the affordable car and the other as a luxury item. Volvo chose to position itself as the safest car. BMW positioned around superb engineering and performance while Audi is all about sexiness.

Mercedes-Benz on the other hand has struggled with its positioning in the last few years and its market share has been eroded. While it started out as a luxury brand, over the years bad brand management and leadership meant Mercedes tried to enter the low end of the market and ended up diluting its positioning. Today it is not sure what its positioning is.

The airline industry

Virgin has one of the strongest brand positions in the airline industry. Richard Branson, with his personal branding and charisma, has truly created a world class airline. Emirates Airlines have been thought of as the most valuable airline in the world. Emirates is all about luxury and they position themselves appropriately.

What about Delta Airlines? Don’t get me started. All I can say is that they have positioned themselves as the most irritating and hassle-full airline. At least that is how the public perception is, if the tons of feedback on social media is any indication. Over in Europe, you have the low-cost airlines such as RyanAir or EasyJet who enjoy a lot of negative publicity because of their tricky positioning targeting the lowest end of the market and then doing things to push their profits, which does not go well together and is bound to make customers unhappy.

The fashion world

The fashion world is full of positioning exercises. Positioning your fashion or clothing line is quite critical because of the highly competitive nature of the industry and the highly fickle mentalities of the audience. Positioning through brand storytelling is the key.

Dunhill gained market share by creating and advertising a fantasy lifestyle. Dunhill created for itself an image of the “quintessentially British male” by making its name synonymous with the automobile (Tungate, 2011). Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger neither sketched, sewed, nor designed any original clothes. They were the “haute couturiers of marketing” and exemplified the way fashion in America had changed (Agins, 1999).

Brooks Brothers, founded in 1818, is an excellent example of “heritage positioning.” The essence of American style, Brooks Brothers prides itself on its guiding principles: “to make and deal only in merchandise of the finest quality; to sell it at a fair profit and to deal with people who seek and appreciate such merchandise.”

There are also plenty of failed fashion brands that could not position themselves correctly. Even celebrity brands fail and money is not the solution. Paris Hilton’s “Dollhouse,” Miley Cyrus and Max Azria for Walmart, Mandy Moore’s “Mblem,” Lindsay Lohan’s “6126,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Bitten” (makes me cringe!), and Kanye West’s “Pastelle” all struggled or collapsed despite the fame and resources behind them.

Avoiding common positioning mistakes

Overcomplicating your positioning is the most frequent. The simpler your brand message, the easier it is for your audience to understand and remember it. Ignoring cultural nuances is the second, and in today’s global market, what works in one culture may offend in another.

Neglecting storytelling is the third. Stories create emotional connections far more memorable than facts and figures. Underestimating internal branding is the fourth, because your employees are your best brand ambassadors and if they do not understand your positioning, they cannot communicate it.

Falling into the “me too” trap is the fifth. Your brand positioning should highlight what makes you unique, not how you are the same as everyone else. And overlooking micro-moments, those instances when consumers turn to a device to take action on an immediate need, means missing the moments when decisions are actually made and preferences are shaped.

In a crowded marketplace, it is critical to differentiate your brand and make sure you understand how to position and communicate in the right way to attract the right kind of customers, conversions, and ultimately larger market share. Brand positioning is a critical element of your business success and requires careful thought and attention.