Brand Strategy
Key question
Where does the brand stand in the market?
A brand never stands alone. It is always perceived in comparison with others. That is why every strategy begins with a look at the market, competitors, and your own starting position.
Learning objective: You are able to analyse a brand and its environment, and derive opportunities for positioning from this.
A brand is always seen in comparison.
2.1 / Baseline situation
Taking an honest look before planning.
A SWOT analysis arranges the initial situation into four quadrants:
INSIDE
Strengths
What does the brand do better than others?
INSIDE
Weaknesses
Where does she need to catch up?
OUTSIDE
Opportunities
Which developments are playing into her hands?
OUTSIDE
Risks
What could harm her?
Strengths and weaknesses relate to the brand itself, whilst opportunities and threats come from the outside. Things get exciting when you bring them together: which strength aligns with which opportunity?
Leveraging strengths, connecting opportunities.
2.2 / Competition
Who else is competing for the same attention?
Competitor analysis examines how competitors present themselves: What do they promise, how do they look, how do they speak, and which target audiences do they address? The criteria of the design analysis help with this.
It often becomes apparent that many brands in an industry look the same and make the same promises. That is precisely where the opportunity lies to stand out.
Where everyone looks the same, the different stands out.
2.3 / Positioning Map
Two axes show free fields.
A positioning map arranges brands along two axes that are important to the target audience, such as price and innovation or tradition and modernity.
Blank fields indicate potential gaps. However, a gap only represents an opportunity if there is also a genuine need.
A gap needs a demand.
Exercise
Market analysis in four steps
Task: Analyse the environment of a brand you are working on in the course.
STEP 1
Create a SWOT analysis.
STEP 2
Collect the presences of five competitors and compare them.
STEP 3
Choose two axes and place the brands on the positioning map.
STEP 4
Formulate two potential opportunities for your brand.
Evaluation: Which axes showed the most interesting differences?