Uh oh, it's a think piece, good for bedtime reading!
We're always working on challenging the rules and existing ways brands are positioned and communicated.
Two areas we're really hot on that are crucial in managing lifestyle brands are worth sharing.
1. Alternative sector behavioural positioning
And
2. Polarised personality positioning
We've all been in the brainstorm where the facilitator says "If we were a car, what car would we be?", or "If we were a celebrity, who would we be?".
Whilst the exercise is a sensible approach, it tends to fall down because practical minds will find flaws in the direct comparisons.
So, the way we see it, is this:
Alternative sector behavioural positioning.
Basically, consumers will view your brand in context to their lifestyle and how it fits into their self image, social context and product usage role. Naturally they'll have a load of other brands that do their respective roles in other facets of their lives and each will have its characteristic behaviors.
And there lies the trap - brands fall into the routine of conforming to the way they believe consumers want them to behave - a whisky brand is always like a whisky brand, a phone brand like a phone brand...
Naturally leading brands set the standard to which the competition tend to mimmic, but it's a short lived strategy.
We're finding a powerful way to gain edge for a brand is to define brand characteristics from other sectors in the consumers lifestyle. So a drinks brand can behave like a fashion or editorial brand, a fashion brand can behave like a music brand, a car brand like a leisure destination and so on.
It works because it inspires and disarms the consumer. They believe the brand is cool because it represents things they love, but they believe it is cutting edge because it's not what they'd expect from the type of product.
Secondly, Polarised personality positioning.
Generally brand values are aligned between a faux persona of the brand as set within an aspirational marketing context and a reflection of the consumers' own values.
However, think about a celebrity you admire with a strong personality. Often they characterize behaviors, opinions and attitudes that we would like to have ourselves and voice but maybe lack the confidence or articulation to share them.
In short, they're not bland, average and well rounded, they're opinionated, dynamic and self assured.
So when we define a brand's personality we look to polarise it's characteristics against a good understanding of what the consumer is likely to be most receptive to.
We achieve this from an extensive matrix of characteristic attributes that we use to find the extremes (e.g. Aggressive or Passive, Tense or Relaxed, Conservative or Liberal).
The reason this approach works so well is that consumers today want marketing - Yes they do!
As consumers are so brand and marketing literate and their media/ experiences converge, they expect the role of good brands to provide a source of entertainment and want them to be exciting, informing and impressive.
So the rules have changed and brands need to get in step to stay in favour - makes life interesting doesn't it?
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