I love looking at communications and trying to understand the brand positoning that lies behind it (that is one of the things that makes me a little sad). Here are three brand positionings that I don’t think are brand positionings at all.
Real
Any time a brand tries to say ‘I’m the real one’ be wary. All brands in a category are real (unless they don’t actually exist). To say one is more real than the other is esoteric and not at all consumer focused. People need a degree of authenticity in the brands they consume nearly all the time, but this is not a brand positioning, it’s one small element of positioning (credibility). To say you’re ‘real’ is to say you exist, and brands need to do more than that. What’s your promise?
Individual
How can a brand deliver ‘individuality’? It’s weird. Marketing is a mass-market game, and brands have to appeal to lots of people to succeed. You cannot credibly be individualistic to each of these people. There is one exception, perhaps brands that can completely change their appearance for every customer can live up to this promise (e.g. iGoogle?). However, a typical FMCG or alcohol brand (for example) cannot.
What’s nostalgia? It’s a story that communicates the brand has been around for a while. However, this is more a product feature than a positioning. If you can’t think of anything else to say, then say you’ve been around for a while, but please don’t confuse that with your brand positioning.
There you go. Thoughts?
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