Positioning your Brand in 2023 with Dr. Manmeet Barve - Doerscircle Masterclass Minutes
Positioning your Brand in 2023 with Dr. Manmeet Barve - Doerscircle Masterclass Minutes
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DO Masterclass Minutes: A summary of the insights and learnings from each class.
Topic: Positioning your Brand in 2023
Expert Speaker: Dr. Manmeet Barve, Associate Professor, MET Institute of Management, Mumbai (India).
So, without further ado, let’s get into a (summarized) recap of what we learnt in the class.
What is Brand Positioning?
Brand positioning, in simple terms, can be described as the “unique value that a brand presents” to its customers. This is the concise dictionary definition. It showcases that brand positioning is basically the level of uniqueness each brand provides to customers who are interacting with it and buying products/services from them. Brand Positioning encompasses everything from your company's objective to consumer demand. Any business, especially startups, should focus on having a strong brand position to ensure authority to dominate the market later. Many startups have ideas and statements for their missions, vision, objectives, however, they miss out on a very important one: “The Positioning Statement.”
What is A Brand Positioning Statement?
A brand positioning statement is anything from a word, tagline, phrase, or idea that is created for the targeted end user of your product/service. It has to mention the need or want of customers and give them a compelling reason to buy what you are selling. In the long run, the brand positioning statement should work towards becoming so renowned that the customers associate the product and brand name with the product category itself. For instance, customers shouldn’t photocopy, they should “Xerox,” while they should not use glue, they should use “Fevicol.” The brand positioning statement should provide a clear benefit of the product/service while also differentiating itself from the main competitor in the market. This does not necessarily need to be a part of the taglines that are given to the customer, but it should be made aware through all the marketing done. A brand positioning statement is not necessarily based on the organization or the original vision of the firm itself, as many incorrectly assume. It is more of a statement for each product in your company’s product mix where all their positioning statements work in tandem to create a holistic brand positioning statement for the company.
How Should You Do your Brand Positioning?
These are some of the key things you should keep in mind when you position your brand in the market.
Find Your Objective When You Position your Brand
According to Dr. Manmeet, an objective can easily be described as “Demand.” Your objective, as an entrepreneur or startup founder, is to meet demand and fulfil customer wants and needs. However, to create a memorable brand position, you need to dig deeper and understand what your long run objective is. It could be anything from sales, awareness level, customer acquisition, and customer retention, amongst other parameters. Instead of asking “Why are the revenues going down?” companies should be asking “Have I truly understood the needs of the consumers? Once you have the answer to this question, you will know exactly where gaps exist between your brand and the customers. After you do tackle the issues creating the gaps, you will be able to position your brand in a way that is memorable.
Make Customers Feel Powerful When You Position your Brand
As startup founders, you will be very passionate about the business you are running, the problems getting solved, and the cause that is being worked towards. Your organization will be motivated and proud of working towards your goals whilst being completely aware of what they hope to achieve when positioning the brand, a certain way. However, customers will have no idea of your goals if you don’t explicitly tell them. You should fall in love with your organization, however, it is the customers that should feel powerful when using your brand. Your product or service needs to make customers feel that their ordinary lives are extraordinary after using your products. They need to feel a significant change in their lives after utilizing what you provide, to create a long-term association with your brand. If your solution makes them feel powerful, they will remember you.
Understand Product & Prospect Concepts When You Position your Brand
This is as simple or complicated a concept we want to make. This revolves around Jack Trouts and AI Ries’ concept of brand positioning which describes it as something you “do to the mind of the prospect and not what you do to the product.” This is why brand positioning statements tend to get lost in the middle of the more popular objectives, as everyone tends to focus on the product instead of what the products should invoke in the customers.
This is also where the concepts of Brand Image and Brand Identity come into play when discussing brand positioning. Brand identity is what you create for yourself whilst brand image is what the customer sees and believes. It can sound pretentious at first, but brand image is and should be given more importance than brand identity. For instance, use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to understand and implement this concept. The tool explains how needs and wants can be categorized into 5 segments: physiological, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization. In the case of brand positioning, your brand identity and image need to be effectively differentiated between. For instance, even if you identify as a safety need, you have to portray yourself as a social need or above. Even if the product may be fulfilling a safety need of consumers, they should want it enough for it to become a self-fulfillment/actualization need for them.
What Tools & Exercises Can You Utilize to Position your Brand Better?
User Journey Mapping: User Journey Mapping will help you figure out which stage of the user’s journey of seeking a solution should you come in. This will help you position your brand according to exactly when the customer needs you.
Perceptual Mapping: This will help you categorize your brand using all the possible perceptions the customers have and then choose which ones you need to focus on based on their prevalence.
Points of Parity: These are points that make your product/business competitive enough to operate in the market effectively. Knowing these will help you figure out the points of differentiation for the product/business and create a memorable brand position.
Points of Differentiation: These are the points that will need to be figured out after the parity is identified. These will be the unique selling points (USPs) and aspects of your product/service/bnbusines that make it have a competitive edge over others in the market.
12 Archetypes: These 12 types of a brand you can be will help you prep your strategy and image better. The 12 archetypes are Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Explorer, Outlaw, Creator, Magician, Ruler, Caregiver, Lover, Jester, and Sage. Once you know which archetype you want to focus on, you can easily create and change your brand positioning efforts to match the same.
Eg. Evian, despite of it being a brand that sells water, wanted to portray itself as “Innocent,” giving rise to its “Live Young” campaign. It revolved around making customers feel young after drinking that water, with the use of word mapping. Evian wanted the following map to be made in the customers’ minds every time they thought of Evian: Water --> Hydration --> Health --> Youth. This simple connection created a memorable brand position in the customers’ minds, making Evian extremely known.
50 Benefits of the Business: This is an exercise founders should do within the organization to see what aspects everyone considers to be beneficial, when it comes to the product you are selling. After which, the most repeated words should be used as the main anchors for potential brand positioning and overall branding decisions.
According to Dr. Manmeet, branding is more about a single word than it is about pages and pages of campaigns. Each brand should focus and revolve around that one word. Whether it is small accounting firms portraying themselves as “Rats” who dig around your balance sheets and look for errors or large corporations like Kellogg’s getting themselves associated with just a simple word, “Breakfast.” It sounds easier said than done, however, if you are consistent with your effort, it will become easy over time.
Remember these 2 things when brainstorming about your Brand Position:
- Before you think outside the box, think inside it. Because that is where the money lies.
- Be consistent. Your word has no value if it isn’t constantly heard by the customers.
About the Expert: Dr. Manmeet Barve is an associate professor of marketing at the MET Institute of Management, Mumbai (India). He has 17 years of experience in the industry and works with research centers and state governments to aid them with their innovation. Whilst mentoring startups all around the world.
Upcoming DO Masterclass: Be Heard with a Powerful Voice
Expert: Cynthia Zhai, voice coach & professional speaker.
Date: 16th February 2023
Time: 4 PM SGT (Singapore Time)
P.S. DO Masterclasses are free only for a limited time and will soon become a feature for Premium Members only… So, reserve your free spot before time runs out!
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