Targeting Right: Nailing Brand Positioning

Ever wondered if you're targeting the right audience on the right platforms? Discover the secrets of brand positioning and learn why understanding your audience is crucial for effective marketing. We'll explore how modern branding has shifted towards creating communities and emotional connections, using Lego's remarkable comeback as a prime example of engaging a passionate fan base. By personalizing your brand's storytelling and aligning with your audience's values, you'll understand how to create a lasting impact.

This episode speaks to the continuous evolution of brand strategy, emphasising the importance of testing, measuring, and adapting. Learn how modern branding has shifted towards creating communities and emotional connections, using Lego's remarkable comeback as a prime example of engaging a passionate fan base. 

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Chapters

• 0:03 The Importance of Brand Positioning
• 15:31 The Evolution of Brand Strategy
• 27:35 Navigating Brand Discovery and Engagement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

you're listening to Brandon butter a straight-talking occasionally in your face no BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners here for those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing associations, consumer behavior and design thinking can impact what people see, think and feel. I'm your host, tara Ladd, the sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable and often unapologetically blunt founder and creative director of Brandon Design Agency. Your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brandon Butter. What I want to talk to you about today is something that I feel a lot of people aren't really aware of, or, if they are, they're not noticing it. Well, they're not noticing that it's this that's stopping them from growing.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Today I want to talk about the importance of positioning. So when we look at a brand strategy, we look at who you are, what you do, what you're about and who you're here for, and then we map that into a process, and every person or every agency or whoever develops brands will have their own way of developing that process. Whoever develops brands will have their own way of developing that process, and for us, we like to start with the initial driver, that process of purpose, and you don't have to have this big outlandish thing to why you're in business, but genuinely there is a reason that you exist and it's because you felt that someone probably wasn't doing it the way that you could and so you started your own business, or you're working with someone else that had that idea of starting a business. So, over time, businesses grow and they scale and they develop and they can essentially lose track of where they started. But a key part of brand strategy to take you back is positioning, and so, prior to positioning, is understanding who the audience is, because if you don't know who the audience is, then you will essentially be positioning yourself in the wrong market, therefore speaking to the wrong audience, and that can knock on from so many different iterations, because you would have say, for instance, you were targeting as a really outlandish example. Example sorry, I just choked on my own spit we look at boomers and then you say I'm going to put a campaign and invest all my time and energy on TikTok. Now, sure, boomers may use TikTok, but I could bet my bottom dollar that majority of them are not on that platform. Therefore, you're funneling a whole ton of energy and time and efforts into something that will just not generate you the results that you need. However, we see brands use platforms because they like the platform, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right place for them to be, and so this is why we are always harping on about the importance of brand strategy, but specifically understanding the audience.

Speaker 1: 3:34

So, when we look at positioning, not only are you looking at where you need to be, which is also considered placement you're looking at how you then position yourself in terms of price and purpose and difference, and all of these things funnel into the way that you communicate your story, your messages. You know personalization to specific personas, and if you haven't nailed that, everything following that will just fall flat, and so what we're seeing is people talking to an audience that may have been their audience prior, but everything has shifted. I cannot stress this enough that the whole world has shifted shifted. We buy by emotion and therefore we put our money where our heart is, even if that's a subconscious decision. That's exactly what happens, and a really good example of this is the political conversation that's going around at the moment. When you have people endorse or speak about a preference, you will then see both a positive and negative response to that preference, and this is because people are then emotionally driven by how they choose and how they engage with people, and we're at a point in society where people are very much like. If you don't share the same values, that's it Now. Should it be like that? I don't know, but it is, and we're seeing this more and more and more and more, and so that's why brands need to make it a very I guess it's an important step to take so that you make sure that you are targeting a very specific audience and one that you will build a very loyal and emotional connection with. Now you've got big brands like Apple and Nike and all of the big, you know, top level brands, and they have grown from the prior days.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So we're talking about when brand has evolved from being just a product or service into the purpose as to why you exist, and now we're moving into like community and belonging, and personalization is core to that, as is storytelling, and those that sit on the fence will just become one of those surface level brands that are just speaking to the masses. In order for you to build a really hype generated brand, I guess, raving fan base, you need to speak to things that really resonate with that audience. Now, this doesn't mean that you need to go out and get all political it's not what I'm saying at all but it does mean that you need to speak to things that are very centric around what your audience wants and needs. And if you don't know who your audience are at a level of depth, you are going to completely miss the mark. And so, to give you an example, lego were on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s, and what actually brought them back was that they listened to their most passionate fan base, which just so happened to be the adult fans of Lego. They've even got an acronym, afols, and it's like a whole thing. And so what they found was that their audience wasn't children. It was these casual builders that were engaged in their community, that were full of architects and creatives and engineers, and they told stories with how they built things, and there was like conversations on forums and conventions and Lego parties, and they realized that the power of their community was centric in these people. And so what they did was they collaborated with these people and they brought them in to the rebirth of Lego 2.0. And what they did was they got them involved in product development and they gave them a platform to share their creations and their builds and they dived into some really psychological principles that helped them to reignite their fire. So by doing this, they were able to, like, tap into the nostalgia, and they knew that because Lego had grown with these people.

Speaker 1: 8:20

So I've had this conversation with my friends recently of when you're invested in a brand. It becomes a centric part of your identity, and this is something that I can't stress enough is that we buy brands from emotion and they become part of who we are. Now, not every brand has a special place like that, but a lot of it does. You would go and buy a specific branded car because it symbolizes something and if, all of a sudden, that car went out of business or whatever, something would stir in you if you owned one of those cars. We saw this happen with Holden and Holden no longer existing in Australia, and there was a big, I guess, emotional charged response from the audience of those who were part of that Ford Holden rivalry.

Speaker 1: 9:08

And, yeah, this is what I mean by. It's so much more than just having a business. The brand itself is the emotional attachment that people buy into and, regardless, it doesn't have to be something so big, but it is definitely something that charges a connection that goes way beyond a transaction, and so when we're looking at Lego, like it was about the joy of creation and self-expression and also the community that was involved in that, and so what they did was that they rebuilt that by listening to their people and they channeled what it was that they really loved about it, and that is what was built into the rebrand of their messaging. Had they had not listened to their audience or asked questions or gone back to the drawing board, they never would have had this information and only would have gone by hearsay or what they thought was right. And as brands and business owners and people that sit within those senior level leadership positions of creating brand, sometimes you can be blinded by your own biases, and it just goes to show that sometimes asking the questions and really engaging with the audience is exactly where it's at Now.

Speaker 1: 10:25

What I'm seeing is a lot of people listening to and I put in adverted commas experts of their field on what they need to do. The thing is, no one knows what they're doing at the moment, and we have people that are very good at messaging or very good at brand development or very good at creativity or marketing, but at the end of the day, the world has changed so quickly that everyone has needed to pivot, and so what worked for you maybe two years ago is just not working for you now, and this even goes for those people that are saying that they're doing well for you now and this even goes for those people that are saying that they're doing well. I could bet you that if you looked at the books, unless there's a high demand for whatever product that they're selling at the moment. So if you're in that utilities space of things that people actually just need to survive, like food, petrol, those insurances, things that people really need those industries always skyrocket health, education. But when we're looking at nice to have type things or things that people need but may hold off on, you need to get really creative as to how you position and how you speak to an audience, because people just aren't willing to let go of their money like they used to.

Speaker 1: 11:42

And, as I was saying, you will see that there's behavior shifts across the board. So those that were doing well and may still be doing well may have seen a dip in their previous average. So you can't compare your average to their average, because their average may have been much higher. But we're seeing this and I say it in the form of a staircase. Everyone's taken one step down, and so what you'll see here is those that will adapt, change, pivot, take risks are the ones that are actually going to win, because playing it safe just won't win in this market, because no one really knows what they're doing, because no one is an expert. No one is an expert on people, no one is an expert on behavior, and if they were, we would already have predicted where the economy would be right now.

Speaker 1: 12:24

And this is the thing. We have economists who are paid very big money to be able to assess and predict what's going to happen, but the thing is no one can, because no one can predict emotion. How we respond to certain events is emotionally driven and no one can respond to it. They thought by now they could have burst the bubble for the housing crisis. The thing is, if you spark enough demand to say there is scarcity in that space, you're never going to get a home, and that message keeps drilling into people. They're going to be thinking oh my God, if I don't get it now, I'm never going to have my chance, and so it drives behavior, it drives purchasing, and we see this happen, and this is why psychology is so deeply embedded into how you build out a brand strategy, because you just need to understand people, and so, prior to going out and trying all your tips and tactics, you need to really go back three steps. I'm seeing so many people go my marketing isn't working. I'm doing all this content, it's like, but how well do you really know your audience and how well are you really researching? Because, the fact of the matter is, no one likes to research.

Speaker 1: 13:37

I have spent the last 18 months at your One and Only, literally diving into core topics to assess certain areas, and it started with re-educating myself and going to uni in three different subjects four different subjects, I should say, on human behavior, consumer psych, behavioral neuroscience and the way that we think, act and behave, and using behavioral neuroscience in leadership for business. So it was getting on top of what I already know and adding that level of complexity from a university grade education to be able to implement those things as well as read a whole bunch of different books and also learn from those that are kind of winging it and disrupting the market, because, as we know, when you learn something from education, it's not always going to work, as they say. You have to test and experiment, and then you do it your own way. And what we're seeing right now post-COVID because COVID had huge impact on the way that society's behaving at the moment we see people getting really confused on to what to say and how to differentiate, and the reason is quite simple it's because people are trying to mimic what other people are doing that has gotten them success, and there are so many different things that are part of someone's success, and it's not just what they've done in one instance. It is a spectrum of things that they have done. It's who they know, it's timing, it's education, it's ongoing learning, it's a series of understanding, brand marketing and sales and promotion, getting in right places, being in the right rooms, having the right conversations, being consistent, staying to the path.

Speaker 1: 15:31

There are so many things that we need to take into consideration. It is not just do my one-step framework and boom, you'll be a millionaire, because the biggest thing that I've learned over these last 18 months has been test. Biggest thing that I've learned over these last 18 months has been test, measure, adapt, constant adaptation. It's not quickly rushed to market with something. It's thoughtful and, I guess, planned and calculated on what I'm going to do. It's what do I want to achieve.

Speaker 1: 16:00

If I'm going to invest a shit ton of time into something, I want to make sure that it's worth my energy. And when everyone is so time, poor energy is so important because if you put it in the right or in the wrong place, you will burn out, plain and simple. And what I'm seeing is really amazing highly intelligent people burning out because they're attaching their worth to the value. So if you're not making sales, that doesn't mean that you suck at what you do. It just means that there's something missing. There's a knowledge gap, and everyone's going through this knowledge gap because people are changing and so things that we learned two years ago are not working the same way and everyone is having to shift and adapt. You watch any big brand If you want to know what's happening in the market. You watch what the bigger brands are doing because they have teams of researchers, teams of creatives and the science and market research to back up. Make no mistake there is good reason why you're seeing big brands rebrand right now, and it is because you need to, and that may not be like a complete identity shift. There are people that have amazing.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Do not mistake. By the way, do not mistake rebrands with a visual identity refresh. That is an execution of a brand. It is part of the brand identity. It is not the brand identity. The brand identity coming back to what I was saying at the beginning is purpose, mission, vision, values. It is positioning your unique selling proposition. How do you differ in the market? What's your positioning statement? How do you differ from competitors? It is understanding your values, it's your alignments, it's your beliefs, it's your story that you tell. It is the people that you have.

Speaker 1: 17:50

Culture is hugely, hugely important, as is the leadership of that business and that culture. I can guarantee you that if there is a shit leader at the top, that the whole brand will fail, because energy carries through, and so what we talk about as we go through the pillars of a brand is then you look at perception and you look at personality, and so what does that brand personality symbolize? You have to add that human attribute, because people are not just buying into bullshit these days. They want to know what you stand for, what you believe in, how you manufacture stuff, what your process is, what other people have said about you, how they're going to feel working with you. Think of brand as a relationship. The relationship is what you're selling. The persona of that brand is who you are within that relationship, and then you need to understand how you speak to your audience within that construct.

Speaker 1: 18:59

I'm getting off on a tangent. So this is what's happening. People go, I have a visual identity or somewhat of a strategy, or I know my audience, but you probably don't know your audience as well as you think you do. There is always, always more that you can know. Data does not lie. Data does not lie, and so what I've seen is a massive uptick in what I'm doing, and so I just constantly assess okay, that worked, that didn't. They need to know this information, and I can tell you right now, if I had started to build out the product suite that I wanted to build out six months ago, it wouldn't have worked, because the content that I've pushed out in this last two months has been what's hit and has been what brought people in, and it's completely different. And I was like whoa, okay, and so it's just, sometimes you've just got to do the hard yards and you've got to stick it out.

Speaker 1: 19:54

But too many people want that instant gratification, they want that quick result, and that's not what brand is. Now, of course you need to make money. You can't just live in scarcity, and so that's when you kind of put these little drip feed things in and you test masterclasses or you test product lines and things that are like a lower level kind of hit, that kind of bring that revenue in in the interim. But big, big product suites, just test the market. It's market viability. What you think that the customer needs may not be it at all.

Speaker 1: 20:27

And then it's also tying in that emotional need, want, desire, pain, point into the messaging, because if you don't know who the audience is and you don't know how to position yourself, then the messaging won't work either, even if you've got the best messaging, and it won't be the best messaging, because if you're not targeting the right people in the right places, then the messaging will be wrong. So it's the same as having a really beautiful design If the design doesn't relate and connect to the people that you're trying to sell to, it's going to fall flat. And this is where all of these missing pieces of a brand are so, so crucial, because you could have all of these things in place, and then you could have the voice and the messaging all in place, and then the visual identity completely paints a completely different perspective or a very different perception of what it is that you actually do and what you stand for, and so there's a disconnect. And so that's what? Well, that's essentially what the laboratories that we're building is making sure you understand audience, psychology, behaviors and emotion, and then figuring out how to speak to people, and then building out your strategy who you are, what you do, what you're about, who you're here for. Finding out those personas, how do you then position your brand and be in the places where these people are? But making sure that you're lasting longevity by being able to adapt and shift, by putting a I guess, a growth strategy in place so that it doesn't get stuck in one spot if the market changes, and so it needs to evolve with the time.

Speaker 1: 21:54

You need to have that ability to evolve, because what we saw with Stanley Cup, for instance, was a mummy blogger who got on and spoke about taking her husband's drink or using her husband's drink, the container, the cups that they have, and that's what blew them up, and then they realized that they had this whole area of the market that was so untapped because no one even thought about it, and then they created a whole pastel range and now they've blown up their brand because they've just targeted a completely different area that they weren't even considering. It was just by accident and that was a really interesting thing to happen to them, and so obviously everyone talks about Stanley and that's kind of a whole case study in itself. But it's just being open to listening and this is the thing. Don't just take a little bit of information and say, yep, that's enough now. This is a never-ending process. It's constantly evolving. You need to be reading, watching, behaving, shifting and then tweaking every single time.

Speaker 1: 22:59

You do something. It's adding, it's asking questions, it's feedback, it's those reviews, it's those tiny little, tiny little changes are the power to your brand and your customer journey and why people will stick around. When people feel seen and heard. That is what builds the attachment. But without knowing where you sit in the market and how you differ, these responses from these people you will never get. And so that's where it's sitting at the moment and we've created a quiz. So if you want to jump on our website, you can go over and have a look. I'll drop a link in the show notes, but it's called Find your Brand Gap and essentially it's just asking you a bunch of different questions to see where you rank. Now don't lie. Do it with like legitimacy, because you will get an accurate response and it will show you where you kind of need to grow.

Speaker 1: 23:53

And what we're seeing is people. I actually believe people think that they're further along than what they are, because as a brand strategist, I am constantly learning and changing and needing to adapt myself. So I could definitely guarantee that a lot of brands that aren't in this space haven't revisited or gone back, and it's not completely upheaving. It could be just that you're fixing or tweaking or slightly shifting just to make sure that you go from yay to woohoo. It's just that slight difference that can nudge you in the right behavior. And also remember that this is a slow burn.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Brand isn't an overnight thing. Brand is an ongoing thing. It's an ongoing change, ongoing conversation that you need to be having with your people, because the world's moving and your brand needs to align to the movement of society, and so that's where it sits is really humans at the center and belonging and likability and values and understanding how you can then align your brand to what it is that your audience really need, because if you don't, you're only really putting a brand up for something that suits your own needs and you're never going to get the sales that you need. Also, longevity, and another thing is not everyone wants to make money. So you know, if you are a service provider and you're helping brands in that space and one of the key messages is make more money, well, that can work short term. It's not always a long term approach, because how do things work when people get money? What then happens then? How are you then valuable?

Speaker 1: 25:33

There's a lot of people that are in business because there's a passion and there's a movement and there's a drive to do something better, and that's actually your responsibility to figure out what it is. And yeah, I will leave you with that one today, because I mean this topic could go really deep, but that's just in a nutshell. It's simply figuring out. How do you position yourself? Who are your audience? Who are you actually trying to attract? Are they the right audience? Do you need to go back to the drawing board and figure out who you're here for, and then maybe it's that you need to then go back and reposition, be in the right places. Think of it like Toyota versus Mercedes Two both sell cars, both positioned very differently in the market by how they promote and offer their services, even their pricing, the way that they promote their family values, jumping at the back of the car versus the luxury. It's all strategic and it's all very well placed so that you get in front of the right people and the right drivers and the right motivations.

Speaker 1: 26:44

And also, someone that you may have targeted previously may not be in your cycle anymore. They may have evolved past you or they may not be just where you're at at the moment, and so we need to know that customers come in and out. Once someone works with us and maybe their brand grows to a significant level, then we wouldn't be the ones for them anymore. They would then go to a higher agency that could manage that demand, and that's exactly the process, that's how it should be. And so you have to also understand where you sit in the buyer's journey, where you sit in the life cycle of that buyer's journey and how you can cater to the people that sit within that space, because one client may not last that whole time with you and you need to understand what it is that you sell that gravitates with the person, or you know that people are attracted to and you need to speak to that person's pain point. And that's it for today.

Speaker 1: 27:35

So if you want to see the uh quiz, that's on our website you can go and just check the nav bar. It's in the links and I'll also paste it down in the show notes. But this is a really interesting conversation that we'll be talking to a lot and we have a masterclass that is coming out on this soon. So keep your eyes on the prize and we will drop things about that soon. Until then, I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? I hope so, because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at.