Positioning – The Third Element of Brand

If you read my blog regularly you will notice that the title has changed (again). It seems that someone thought the name was a bit close to their business name and asked us (actually demanded via their lawyers would be more accurate) that it be changed. So in the spirit of keeping it simple – welcome to the Brand blog!

Last week I mentioned what I called “the third element” of brand – positioning.

It’s an element of brand that is most often treated as the key basis for marketing, but I take a different view and think it should go much deeper than that.

I like the general free dictionary definition of the word “brand”. To: “Put or arrange (someone or something) in a particular place or way.”

In business, as the articulation of your what, how, where and who you are, positioning drives the principles and practices of your business and your brand – arranging pieces to achieve a certain result in relationship to those around you.

But it is not static – it can, will and should change over time and so too will your positioning – and that is just the point.

By evolving and moving them to keep in tune with your marketplace and stay in step with your customers it keeps the brand current.

So how can you go about finding your positioning and what do you do with it when you have it?

To begin with positioning must take into account current and intermediate reality. It’s not about your aspiration or your history. It is who you are today.

Questions that will help include: What do you do? How do you do it? Who do you do it for? Where do you do it? Why are you doing it (your purpose)?

Positioning is where you look around you and observe what your competitors are doing and saying, and where your sector is headed.

It is where you most usually find differences – if what, how, who or where you are doing business is not in some way different from others you will struggle to survive.

If you don’t take environmental cues into account and respond via positioning brands can become stagnant and can seem to be out of touch.

But the response is NOT to embark on what is often termed as “rebranding” and what I call a fool’s errand. The response is to look at your positioning.

Are there things we are doing that need to change? Are there principles you work to and practices you work with, policies you work under, products you make that are what are out of touch?

Change those, adjust your positioning accordingly and there is a good chance that your brand will stay current.

And when the resulting positioning statement interacts with the purpose and values you have a foundation for promises that you can keep and a brand that will last.

See you next week.

Michel is an independent brand adviser and advocate. Through her work with Brandology in Australia and in the United States she helps organisations make promises they can keep and keep the promises they make, with a strong sustainable brand the result. She publishes the Brand thought leadership blog Brand Alignment. You can follow Michel on Twitter @michelhogan