Brand and Butter
Always straight-talking (occasionally in-your-face), Brand and Butter is the no-BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. Packed with clear-cut advice on the influence and power of branding - and how pairing associations, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact how we see, think, feel, and even taste.
Brand and Butter serves up refreshingly honest and never-dull conversations with some of today’s boldest brand strategists and architects. Sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable (and often unapologetically blunt), this is the podcast that you wish you’d listened to before launch.
Tara Ladd is the Founder and Brand Strategist at Your One and Only, a brand and design studio here for brands who refuse to settle. Evolving brand identities to stay relevant fusing psychology, strategy, and design.
Brand and Butter
4 Core Areas That Will Set Your Brand Up To Win in 2025
A resilient brand strategy is damn important if you want to win in 2025. In this episode I'm breaking down the importance of 4 core areas:
- Clearly defining the brand purpose
- Deepening the knowledge of your target audience
- Establishing an authentic brand personality
- The crucial role of your market positioning
And, as mentioned in the show notes, if you want a guide on where to focus – download our Brand Action Plan pdf here.
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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 brand and design agency. You're One and Only. Well, welcome back 2025.
Speaker 1:It is a whole new year and I can sense the vibes. It's pretty positive from the general. But as we move into this year, I am getting the feeling from a lot of people that it is the year of change. It is the year of movement and it is the year that people are just over staying still. This is great news because we've been pushing people for a really long time at your One and Only to kind of see where the future is going. But in general, human behavior the brain will keep you in your safe space is sometimes not ideal, the safe space being what? That? What it knows, versus where you should be, and the risk feels like a threat. But as we move into this year, I can see some big changes happening already, and that isn't even just about brand. So, first and foremost, I want you to think of brand as a memory in your audience's mind, because that is essentially what a brand is. It's the associations, it is the values, it is how you lead, it is how people perceive you and, at the end of the day, branding is the identity or the humanized attribute that you wrap around a business. Now we're seeing a lot of different, conflicting values that are running rampant all over social media at the moment and wherever you sit there, I am very strong in my opinion on this on my own page. But wherever you sit there, I am very strong in my opinion on this on my own page. But wherever you sit there, there is going to be emotions, and emotions will always drive behavior, so much so that I saw people, I've seen people remove themselves or unfollow people purely based on a difference of opinion, and that is absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:I am of the firm believer that we're seeing two different things happen with brand at the moment, and that is that you're targeting a very diverse audience we always have, but it's even more diverse at the moment and we're seeing that come from a place of societal narrative what's happening in the world. We're seeing different belief systems, different ideologies, and all of that can come to a head, especially when you have a megaphone like social media that helps to amplify messages or limit them Moving on. So what we're seeing now is brands needing to step up, and if you are a business, you are a brand. That is a person, that is a personal brand, is also considered obviously a brand and, at the end of the day, all it is is a persona, it is a personality, and this is where most brands fall down.
Speaker 1:So today, what I want to talk about is the three core parts that I believe people are missing when it comes to a brand strategy, and if you want your brand to truly win in 2025 and beyond and become sustainable, essentially you need to really understand these three core parts, and it is so much more than a you know five ways to list, or a you know download my framework and follow exactly what I've done. It doesn't work like that, because every single business and every single brand is different, and so what we start with is the business model itself. You need to know that there is viability. I've done a previous episode on this. It's a business first brand, first marketing. Go and listen to that, it will break these core elements down, but you need to understand why you're in business.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of people that cannot even give you an elevator pitch, and that is why you exist. Why should people choose you? Why are you here? And if you don't know that, why do you expect an audience to understand, trust and believe you if you can't even commit to that yourself? Now, that doesn't mean that you don't believe that you can do it. It might mean that you cannot put it into words, and this is why a brand strategy matters, because it creates core messaging, it creates a positioning, and it also helps you to figure out where you sit in the market. So, the three core things that I think that people really really need to be focusing on this year is number one audience. Now, you may go. I've got my audience down pat, do you, though?
Speaker 1:Because this is essentially where I'm seeing the biggest problems, and now, when you nail your audience, you nail every other aspect, and so, prior to the audience, which is what I was just talking about in terms of an elevator pitch, you need to know why you exist. Why are you in business? So are you in business because you just wanted to make a quick buck, that's totally fine, but there needs to be a deeper meaning. What is your intention? What are you trying to achieve? Because people are just not gravitating towards oh, this is, I'm a commodity now, because if you do position yourself like that and you absolutely can there's businesses that are succeeding off that.
Speaker 1:But if you're struggling at the moment and you're not in an industry that's like a commodity, for instance, or utility that is an everyday item, then you're going to need to position yourself in a way where people see you as the choice, and prior to that, you need to understand who the audience is. And prior to that, you need to understand who the audience is and prior to that, you need to understand your own intentions. So I guess you could say, prior to the three steps I'm going to give you, let's just chuck in a zero for shits and gigs. And that is to really know your purpose and understand why you're in business. What is it that you're doing differently to everyone else and why should people choose you? If you can't answer that, that is where the leaky tap is coming from, because you need to understand how to communicate and give a solid messaging structure for your messaging across the board from start to finish and your framework on who you are, what you do, why you exist and who you're here for. Because if you don't have that down part, that's where the problems are.
Speaker 1:And most of the times people will tell me that they're in business because of X Y Z or they started their business because of X Y Z, and I'm like and where is that in any of the communication that you've put out? And they go so understand the deeper meaning and it is so much higher than what you think. So when I try and get clients to understand what a mission vision value is, or mission vision purpose are, I want them to really dig deep. I want them to know this, and this should be hard sometimes. If you have a really clear idea of what you want to do, this should be easy. But if you are trying to figure it out, this involves work, this involves deep reflection and, honestly, it involves the founder really understanding why they're in business in the first place, or co-founders if you're in a partnership or whatever. And so it's like okay, what is the biggest thing that we're doing here? What is the mission, what is our end goal? And essentially, this goal should be something that you probably won't ever hit. It's something that you're ongoing. Like it's ongoing, I should say, and it's something that you're working towards all the time.
Speaker 1:If you make it like you know, I'm trying to think of something really lame, just like you know, where you're making a thousand dollars a month, you want everyone to make a thousand dollars a month, or something really lame Like you could do that so easily, it could be done in a month. And then you're like, oh okay, hit the goal mad. Then you go. What's my purpose now? It's kind of like when someone says that, from my perspective, it's like if you want to become a mother, then you become a mother, and then the kids grow older and then they've gone and they flock the nest or whatever, and it's like, well, who are you now as a person? And that's when people go through an identity crisis is because they've positioned their whole identity around this one thing, and then there's no, there's no area to move, and we see this so often in society, by the way, and that's a whole deeper subject. But this is what I'm asking as a business If your business goes multi-generational and you're trying to pass that down, the mission should be big.
Speaker 1:The mission should be something that is always that you're always working towards, or the vision, and the mission is how you do it right. So the vision needs to be big, the mission is how you do it and the purpose is why you. You purpose is why you're doing it in the first place the core statements that you put in the foundation of the brand strategy, so that people know what they're working towards. It's much bigger than just making and lining the pockets of the boss. They're in it for something good or they're in it because they're doing something and people want to find purpose, and sometimes, when you think about how important our jobs are and how important our careers are, that is pretty important for someone that is going to spend a lot of their time. They want to know that they're doing it for a good cause. There is, you know, a lot of people that just want to make a quick buck, but essentially there is, sometimes there is that bigger purpose, especially with the younger generation coming up. They want to know what they're working for and so know that. So we'll go back to one right.
Speaker 1:So you need to know your audience, and if you don't know who your audience is on a core, deep level. You're missing the mark. And I'm not saying, okay, you know they're stuck in their business or what keeps them up all night. I'm talking about really listening. You should understand their belief systems. You should know where they're hanging out, the information they're consuming, the platforms that they are consuming said information on.
Speaker 1:It's really common for people just to jump on and say, hey, I need a logo, I need a website and I'm jumping on social media and they might choose. I don't know Instagram. How do you know that Instagram is the right place for you to be? That's not saying that Instagram isn't successful and it hasn't been for other people, but if everyone's going to say, oh, this is how you make money on Instagram, sure, you can. But also it can be very dependent on the industry that you're in. And if you are in a different industry, you can obviously break the box and change the game in how you think, but you have to be doing a damn good job of doing that.
Speaker 1:However, if you're trying to reach a wider audience and you know that you're in corporate or you're in B2B, you need to be on LinkedIn. You need to be talking to business owners, decision makers and people that are more than likely going to use your service. So if you are B2C business to consumer for those that are playing at home, and B2B for business to business, b2c as a product brand then Instagram's probably more suited to you, because you're going to catch the odd consumer that's more likely to consume product. And so then we move into number two, and number two is personality. So if you don't know what the brand personality is, then you're in a problem. Number one area, because how are you meant to articulate who you are and draw in a crowd?
Speaker 1:Branding is all about relationships, and marketing is obviously that too. It's about building that relationship. Now, obviously, there are areas for you to be able to break and disrupt, but the general consensus is that you need to look and understand how your audience is consuming information, because if you don't know that and you're just jumping on the next best thing, it means that you could be investing so much time and energy into creating content that is not going to be seen, or it takes 10 times the amount of work to be seen, and so that's when you really need to understand the way that people consume, and the differences are understanding belief systems and then understanding, I guess, intentions, motivations for purchasing, how people make decisions. There are so many different nuances in the way that people choose, but what most of it comes down to is how they align that like in terms of values. So people will always, always buy with emotion. I don't care when someone says to you be logical, because actually your decisions run through your emotional center prior to being able to think logical. So if it is the fact that you're able to think logically I say in inverted commas it's because the decision may not be as emotionally driven, but it still passes through. It may not have as much impact, but this is why impulse buyers exist. They put chocolates at the counter of the grocery store and you just grab one because you feel like it.
Speaker 1:At the end we walk into houses and we choose to buy a property or rent a property. If you're in that space, that's a whole conversation. Then most of the time you're envisioning living there, right? So you're kind of thinking and you're mapping things out about what that would feel like, and once you kind of have gotten to the point where you think that you could live there, then you decide whether you want to make that decision If you can't picture yourself living there instantaneous write-off.
Speaker 1:Naturally, if you were to make a completely logical decision, you would, if you're choosing, say I don't know, to work with a designer, for instance, you would then have to get every single designer that you know or business that you know and line them up to make a calculated choice. This is where marketing comes in, because we just cannot do that Like that is just so time consuming and you would be there for years to be completely honest. So what you do is you search, you get the best of, then you choose a culling process. You have brands that sit within the consideration set, which is top of mind, hence marketing existing. If marketing wasn't important, coke and all of the huge big brands would not continue to market.
Speaker 1:The point is to stay top of mind, hence the drumming in of consistency, and so what you want to do is make sure that you know who your audiences are I say audiences because you know there's usually multiple and then know where you need to be, for each of those people Know how they consume, know how they do business. Is it in person? Are they older, are they younger? What language are they using? How do you want to position yourself or perceive yourself. Are you affordable? Are you cheap? There are so many things that you need to think about, especially in regard to the marketing mix, which is a whole conversation. But you know, people place all of those things positioning price point all of these play a huge role. If you position yourself a higher price point, you consider yourself more luxury. You know, it's like the Prada to Prouds right, and so you need to think about that.
Speaker 1:And, moving on from that, unless you know exactly why your audience is buying and I'm talking like deep seated stuff I'm not talking about, you know oh, we don't have time. It's like why don't have time? It's like why don't they have time? What is it that is stopping them from doing something when they say they are busy? What does busy look like? What is a day in the life of?
Speaker 1:And if you cannot simply answer that, then you've got some work to do. And I'm talking about really understanding, talking to your people. The more people that you talk to, the more answers you will get. The more questions that you ask, the more answers you will receive. And if you're not watching and listening and by listening I mean social listening read reviews, go and watch forums, understand what people are asking Google or search engines. See what people are asking on comments of competitors, see what competitors are doing, like it's a whole process. And then people get on and they're like I can't make any sales and it's like you need a process. Every single thing has a system and a framework and it's actually all it is. You just need to follow some steps and there's different ways of doing that. But at the end of the day, it's just understanding the steps. The problem is you probably just don't know the steps, and so then we look at two, like I said, is personality. Have I already said that? Anyway, personality is number two. Right, personality is the way that you show up. It's the reason why people will align with you, why people want to work with you. It's the difference between if you're an Aussie, go what do you call it?
Speaker 1:Who gives a crap, versus Kleenex or Sorbent right, pretty generic, mundane, made for everyone over here in the Sorbent area and then over here on the other side. We've got you know who gives a crap. Very bold, very out there there, know exactly who their audiences are, um, or audience. They have a very strong perception. They've got humor involved and vastly different. At the end of the day, it's something you wipe your butt with, so you know, but that was totally not intentional but worked so well. What I want you to understand is that most people would choose who gives a crap if their values align with the intention of that company being sustainable, how they use and how they brand what that looks like, what it feels like. When you walk into someone's house and you've got who gives a crap there, they're designed very differently. They're individually wrapped, it's recyclable stuff, so it then, when the consumer buys that, it then is an association of who that person is. So if I buy who gives a crap, these are all of the associations that are now aligned to me. So that went off topic, but basically they have driven that home through personality.
Speaker 1:So many brands rock up with zero personality. They are as vanilla, as you know, bland as batshit, and they're like why won't people buy from me? It's like imagine if you were walking in the street. Think about your friends. This is a really easy way to do it. Think about all of your friends. Each of them has a personality. You would probably go to each one of them for a specific reason. You have tailored their idea of who they are as a person in your mind, based on who they are and the way that they act. That is their personality, their traits, the way they come across. I know for a fact that to my friends I am the one that will speak truth. I am very opinionated. I will tell you how it is, and so if you're wanting someone to give you a big love bomb which I can be at times maybe they may go someone else for a love and nurture hug and you know. Or maybe they just get all five for me, like whatever that may be. But there are definitely traits that you have in your own friends and there is reasons why there'll be the party friend, there's the DNM friend, there's the friend that you go to business, do business with or or whatever that may be, but you will have almost like a segmentation of your own friends, and personality is at the forefront of that.
Speaker 1:So is value alignment, and you think of that in terms of brands. If you're rocking up and you're only talking very bland, mundane stuff, people are not even developing a connection with you, and that is problem number one, right? How do I develop a connection with someone if I don't know who the heck they are. They are giving me nothing. And that's when we start to put our values in. We tell our stories, we show up and we the memes that we share and the conversations and stories we tell, and the way that we align and how we show up, how we lead, how we communicate.
Speaker 1:The words we use, the visuals we use, it all sets a perception and that's when the branding comes into it from the verbal and visual identity. That is not a brand identity. That is part of a brand identity. That is like the execution of the brand identity. Once you know who you are, what you do, what you're about, who you're here for, then you move into the visual identity and developing the voice, because then you've got a really clear indication of the personality, how you want to be perceived, and then you can execute. The problem is everyone's executing without knowing any of the stuff in between, and then they're going. Why isn't this working? Because there's a huge disconnect. And then, number three, we've got positioning. So this all aligns as well. This is part of the brand strategy, but positioning shows people how you are placed in the market.
Speaker 1:So if we were going back to who gives a crap and what did I say, sorbent Kleenex. That's how boring those two brands are. Is that I've basically just made them one? Are they the same? Anyway, that's where we're going with that. One is very personality driven. I will always reference them, I talk about them, I have bought from them, they're very much in alignment to my values and I will buy from them. Even their brand name is funny. So you're not going to see you know a high-end luxury place. Go and put who gives a crap boxes out front of their you know workplace, because it gives off an association. So it is very much a humorous kind of personality, down to earth, casual tone, and you need to understand how, who your audiences are, in order to speak to them in a way that is going to resonate and it's going to connect and it's going to make them go hey, I feel like I belong here. That is essentially the core reason of the identity. It's to make people feel like they belong or that they're in alignment with what it is that you do. And it is all a relationship.
Speaker 1:The whole thing is a memory. How is branding helping to signify a memory of that brand in your head? When you think of Coke, what do you think of? When you think of Nike? What do you think of when you think of any brand? What do you think of? That is your thought and your thought only, just so you know. It is up to the brand themselves to conduct the narrative. What they say helps to shape that perception and that memory of what people think about your brand.
Speaker 1:If you are not telling people, they will not know. It is that simple. How you position yourself is really important. What you believe in, the values that you lead by action, intention. People want to see it.
Speaker 1:Authenticity and that word's thrown around a lot, but being a real human being comes through your tone. You can't fake being real. You can fake being fake. So you can hear when someone is completely talking out of their ass, you can also talk. Or you can also hear when someone is disingenuous with their language. It is such a bullshit radar. It is really easy to tell. You can also tell when someone's selling to you.
Speaker 1:It's why the whole used car salesman vibes a thing You're like I know that you just want me to buy a car because it helps you make more money. That alert in your body called instincts. Like I know that you just want me to buy a car because it helps you make more money. That alert in your body called instincts is a sign of your body using its unconscious mind. So all of that is developed by the way down deep and it's your body saying something's not right here and trust that. That's why when they say, if it's not a hell yes, it's a fuck no. So that is really important advice, because if you feel like something is right like sometimes when I'm investing in someone and it feels right but I can't afford it, I make sure that it happens, because usually that feeling is pulling me in the right direction. That is not woo-woo stuff. That is genuinely how your instincts are built. It's from all of the things that your brain has absorbed over your lifetime and it is telling you information through your senses. It's pretty crazy stuff, by the way, and in case you're wondering how I know that, I've studied behavior, so it is not pulling that out of my ass.
Speaker 1:However, the three things as I go well, let's just say four is purpose Know your purpose, know your mission, vision, values. All of that stuff is centric to how you are going to show up, and so then we'll start. Number one. Number one audience. You really need to know your audience on a deep level and if you think you know your audience, dive into them again and dive into them again, and dive into them again. If you're not performing and killing it on every single platform, there's always an audience issue there, right? And then number two is your personality. So understand who you are as a brand. What type of tone are you using? Are you funny, are you serious, are you witty? All of these things really resonate with an audience, a specific type of audience.
Speaker 1:So if you know you could walk into a room and be a certain type of person and they will hate you, you could close that door, walk into another room and be the same person you were in the other one, but all of those people will love you. Choose the right room, show up as yourself, and the rooms will also find you. If you are trying to fit into boxes, it won't work. It needs to feel right. That's why it's up to you to actually show up as yourself, because then people will start to find you. If you are looking for someone to find you, it is not happening. You need to make the steps yourself.
Speaker 1:Find the places that make you feel good. If you are a founder. You need to be networking. You have to be in person. That is a whole different vibe to being online. Go out and talk to people, see other people within your space, connect with people online. You can still develop relationships online. In fact, some of my closest business connections have come from people online. However, we've also met in person and it's a completely different vibe. When you meet them in real life, you're like yep, you're my person or something feels off here. It's a very, very different thing.
Speaker 1:And then, obviously, number three is positioning and how you place yourself in the market. Are you affordable? If you think that dropping your prices, for instance, is a way for you to get more sales, it is actually incorrect. You could be, depending on, obviously, what it is that you do. But if you're, say, you're a service-based business and you are charging peanuts for your service, that is not going to make more people buy you. It may be make the right audience that you're trying to attract see you as someone that is less than cause you feel too cheap. It's essentially a decision-making process.
Speaker 1:We also need to take out our own mindset on how we spend money, because it's not necessarily how our audience will spend money. So you also need to remove your own emotion and your own biases when you're making up choice, which is why it's also important to work with other people in the spaces that you're trying to, especially in communication. We've even worked with people in terms of, you know, content, marketing and repositioning ourselves, because sometimes we completely miss a gap because we're so close to it. You need someone else to come in and be like bang, bang, bang, and it's that easy for people that know what they're doing. I've done it multiple times this week and it's great because then the client goes I didn't even see that and you're like exactly because you're too close to it. So it's understanding those three things and then all of the other smoke and mirror stuff that people are talking about.
Speaker 1:Messaging is hugely important, but messaging can't even start until you know who your audience is, who your brand personality is and how you're positioned in the market, because if you don't know any of those things, you go and change all of your messaging. It won't do absolutely anything until you have all of those other three things down pat. It's like fix the tap at the top and the force that will run through the other four pipes. So that is essentially today's lesson for you is to just go back to the basics and write the foundation, and if you need help here or trying to figure out what is in a brand strategy, go and download our brand action plan. I will put the link in the show notes, but it just gives you a really clear step-by-step on what to focus on. This is X Y Z. This is what you need to do in this part. Step two this is X Y Z, you know. And then once you kind of go, okay, I've got that, I've got that. Oh, I'm missing this whole section, then it's much easier for you to kind of hit the ground running. Until then you're running blind.
Speaker 1:So I would say that it's now more important than ever for businesses to have a solid brand strategy, even if you have been in business for years and years and years and years, because we're seeing huge shifts in the market, in the way people spend, and just because you have market share now does not mean that you will have it in the future. We have seen big changes, you know. We've seen Kodak go out of business because of the rise of smartphones and digital technology, which is a complete full circle irony in that they invented the digital camera. We saw Blockbuster go out from Netflix and streaming services. The same thing with CDs went completely obsolete because of streaming services. So you don't know what is coming next and what can completely change the game.
Speaker 1:So it's really important for you to solidify brand loyalty, brand recognition and to position yourself in the market by creating a persona and a brand identity that people resonate with on a much deeper level than just seeing you as a commodity. So I hope that gave you some kind of insight, because this is where we're seeing marketing go in terms of what they're trying to communicate. The brands that are doing really well at the moment are the ones that are investing their time into brand marketing. Brand marketing is talking about who they are, they do what they're about, who they're here for essentially, and not just tactics in terms of, hey, buy my product.
Speaker 1:So there are obviously a lot of different parts to marketing, but get your brand down part, because if you don't have your brand down part, it knocks onto every single aspect of your marketing.
Speaker 1:If you don't know your brand tone of voice and you don't know your core, if you don't know your brand tone of voice and you don't know your core messaging, you don't know how you position yourself, then even putting a paid ads, a paid ads strategy to market and going hell for leather on that just means that you'll spend more money trying to make sure that you're in the right places because you don't know where you are. So getting that down in terms of understanding how to speak in the ad, understanding what that visual should look like, understanding how to you know what images to use, how to use them all of this stuff like knocks on from understanding those, those three core parts at the beginning. So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed the first episode back and I will make sure that we've got some kind of system going this week, because I fell off the wagon last year because I just became a little bit overwhelmed and burnt out. And, yeah, this year I'm feeling good, feeling good. So I hope you have a good day and I will speak to you next week.
Speaker 1: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 yourwannanonly underscore au on Instagram.
