Brand Strategy
Key question
Who is the brand for?
Brands only work if they reach people. To do that, it must be clear who the brand is for and what truly drives those people.
Learning objective: You are able to describe target groups, identify needs, and formulate a consumer insight.
If you try to reach everyone, you reach no one.
3.1 / Describing target groups
More than just age and location.
Target groups can be described at several levels:
WHO
Sociodemographics
Age, place of residence, education, income.
HOW
Lifestyle
Values, interests, habits, media consumption.
WHEN
Situation
At what moment does the person encounter the brand?
What is particularly valuable is the situation: the same person has different needs on a Monday morning than on a Sunday evening. Personas from Design Thinking help to make target audiences tangible.
The situation says more than age.
3.2 / Needs
People don't buy products, they buy progress.
The Jobs to be Done approach asks what task people are looking to accomplish with a product or service. Nobody wants a drill, they want a hole in the wall – and, ultimately, a picture hanging on it (a metaphor that originates from Theodore Levitt).
Alongside functional needs, there are emotional and social ones: how do I want to feel, and how do I want to be perceived by others? Brands often appeal to precisely these levels.
Behind every purchase, there's a job to be done.
3.3 / Consumer Insights
A truth with tension.
A consumer insight is an understanding of people that contains a tension: a contradiction between what they do and what they wish for. It is framed from the person's perspective.
Good insights are true, surprising and relevant. They are based on research, such as interviews and observations, and form the foundation for positioning and communication.
An insight needs tension.
Exercise
From target audience to insight
Task: Find out what moves your brand's target audience.
STEP 1
Describes the target group in terms of socio-demographics, lifestyle, and situation.
STEP 2
Conduct three short interviews with people from the target audience.
STEP 3
Gathers needs on a functional, emotional and social level.
STEP 4
Formulate two insights and test them using the quality check.
Evaluation: Which insight surprised you the most?