Brand positioning – how do I communicate my messagethrough my brand? #DearTanya

www.costsavingmarketing.co.uk /brand-positioning-how-do-i-communicate-my-message-through-my-brand-deartanya/

Tanya

Hi Tanya. I want to open a coffee shop type of place which serves freshly squeezed healthy juices. Iknow there is a gap in the market and I really want to explore this business opportunity. How do Icreate a brand which people are attracted to? My friends say that this cafe place needs to have thelook to appeal to fit people who are keen on being active and healthy but I want to really create abrand which speak to everyone who wants to explore the health benefits of juicing. I am so scared I’llget the branding wrong.

Ali Henricks

Hi Ali,

Thank you very much for sending over your question. Branding is a very interesting topic and I rarely have thechance to talk about it.

I started my career in the advertising industry. It was all about the concept behind the logo – colour schemes, thepsychology behind shapes and sizes, typology, elements and composition. All of these things are relevant when itcomes to branding – in fact, they are essential. However, one the most important things you need to think aboutbefore any artwork is this – how do you position your brand in your industry? Where do you fit within your chosenmarket? When you decide how to position your brand in the market, you will have a better idea about what themessage to your target audience should be and how to communicate that message.

Branding

Branding is not just about the logo or the branded products – a brand is the emotional feel behind your message. Itis what connects your target audience with your business. It is about the emotion your brand will evoke whenpeople see your logo and anything else connected to your brand.

A brand is the emotional feel behind your message. #DearTanya Click To Tweet

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning on the other hand is all to do with where you fit within your chosen industry. What is the vision ofyour brand – are you offering products to people who are on a tight budget or you are offering premium products?Knowing where you stand among your competitors will help you recognise your competitors better which means youwill be able to create competitive advantage.

I know this can be very confusing for people who are not in the world of marketing so I’ll try to explain further below.

Let’s say you want to have your business which is all to do with offering healthy freshly squeezed juices. So, are yougoing to be a business which focuses purely on freshly squeezed juices? Is this your core product or you will be

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offering other beverages as well? Would the rest of the products offered will also be in the health industry – e.g. soycoffee and herbal teas? If so, are you going to compete with local coffee shops (the local cafe around the corner) orwith national and international brands (e.g. Starbucks)? Are your juices going to be a premium quality or more onthe “savers/everyday essential” side? Make sure you know what your message is because the way you position thebrand in people’s minds will be crucial – both in terms of the design of the brand identity AND in terms ofpricing/competitiveness.

Imagine a juice bar which offers many types of freshly squeezed juices. The owners of the juice bar want to targetpeople who buy healthy lunch. Their prices will not be on the premium side because not everyone who wants to eathealthy wants to pay £10 for a drink at lunch time. This juice bar is probably only open for a couple of hours a dayand maybe only offers 6 of the most popular juices in a cheap branded plastic cup.

Now, imagine your coffee shop juice business is about all things healthy – you go inside the cafe, you sit down in acomfy chair, you feel empowered that you made the choice to come here instead of drinking unhealthy caffeine inCosta. The atmosphere is very pleasant, you see posters of the local produce the cafe is using to make the juices.You find many magazines about the health benefits of freshly squeezed juices as well as health journals on everytable. The whole place is earthy and the staff is always there to help with the choice of juice based on what yourhealth goal is. You have a menu with juices and underneath each juice you see a description of the health benefitsof every juice – maybe the juice with beetroot is for energy and the one with cucumber is more for the times you justwant to de-stress and relax (by the way these are only examples, I know nothing about juicing). The point is this –when people pay premium prices, they expect a lot more than just a juice in a plastic cup – they will happily pay apremium price if they feel that this is the place for them, if they feel connected to your message, if they believe yourvision.

This is the reason why you need to decide how to position your brand – a business which sells freshly squeezedjuices can mean many things in people’s minds. Don’t forget that once you know the very core of what you offer andyour vision, then you will know your message and you will be able to fully recognise your target audience. When youknow which your target audience is, then you can start recognising their behaviour. Once you know your targetaudience’s behaviours, habits and needs, then and only then you will be able to recognise how to market to them.

By the way, I just cannot stop myself giving you another example of brand positioning and how devastating this canbe for a brand. You are British so I assume you know the brand Thornton’s. For anyone who doesn’t know thebrand, they are a franchise which produces premium high quality chocolates. In the past you could only buy thechocolates from their high street shops. The brand perception was of chocolates you would buy for a specialoccasion or as a treat, definitely not chocolates you buy if you fancy an afternoon snack. Their prices wererepresentative of the premium quality of their chocolates.

Thornton’s Got Stuck in The Middle

During the last wave of recession Thornton’s sales were down – the recession had somewhat negative effect on theluxury industry (although not all luxury industries suffered and some even flourished). Anyway, Thornton’s decidedthey needed more sales so what did they do – they decided to sell via high street supermarkets like Tesco andMorrison’s. They thought “Great, now we have brand exposure in so many more shops, surely sales will go up,right? Supply chain is better, people do their weekly shop in these shops – what’s so bad about expanding?!?” Well,what Thornton’s did not think about was their brand perception – suddenly their premium chocolate box withpremium variety chocolates is not that special as it can be found in any shop. Their target audience stopped seeingThornton’s as luxury chocolates you buy for a special occasion, they started seeing Thornton’s as an overpricedhigh street brand. In the past I would have bought a box of Thornton’s chocolates for my mum’s birthday. Now, Iwould go to Hotel Chocolat because I want my mum to feel that I went the extra mile to buy her premium chocolates,not the ones she can buy herself while doing her weekly shop.

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So, Thornton’s got stuck in the middle – they couldn’t drop their prices as producing high quality chocolates cost alot of money; they need high quality ingredients to keep their core products. Dropping prices means they had to relyon selling higher quantities with lower margins which is not ideal for them as their prices will never be as competitiveas supermarkets’ own brands. At the same time they couldn’t charge as much and keep margins high as they willnever sell enough to keep being profitable. Thornton’s got stuck in the middle! The middle is not golden on thisoccasion. This situation is a disaster for any marketer because once you have your brand perceived in a certainway, it is very hard to change perceptions. When your target market changes the way they see your brand, yourbrand positioning has been changed regardless of what your brand stands for. Marketing is all about perception – ifyou get it right, you can enjoy great awards. Anyone remember the re-branding of Skoda by Volkswagen – The NewSkoda Fabia vRS – Made of Meaner Stuff commercial. A great example of how Volkswagen is trying to changeconsumer perception about the brand and overcome Skoda’s past risible reputation.

I have the feeling that you want to open a cafe-type business (as opposed to a juice bar) so let me just finish thisarticle with one of my favourite quotes:

In 10 years time people will not remember what you said, people will not remember what you did but peoplewill remember the way you made them feel.

What feelings do you want your brand to evoke in people in 10 years?

Thank you so much to all of you who submitted your #DearTanya requests. You have given me some amazing ideasand inspired me to talk about topics I wouldn’t have talked otherwise. #DearTanya is my appreciation to all of youwho inspire me to create content. What’s your #DearTanya request?

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