Rebranding Branding - The Distility Blog

  

1. Your target customer
2. Their need
3. Their frame of reference
4. Your dramatic difference(s)
5. Your reason(s) to believe

Key point: If you are the only person who can fulfill the need as you have defined it, you have probably got it wrong. The need should be something they can fulfill through a variety of solutions, including yours.

1. Your target customer
2. Their need
3. Their frame of reference
4. Your dramatic difference(s)
5. Your reason(s) to believe

Together they give us a positioning statement such as the one I've intuited for the Motorola Droid:

For the technology leader who needs the latest and greatest device, the Motorola Droid is the iphone killer, with a giant screen and the ability to run multiple applications with ease.

This week, I'd like to breakdown the statement components, starting with...

The customer
Of course it all starts with getting the customer right! And this is where all too often it goes wrong, especially in B2B branding, where targeting a job title is very helpful.

Can you describe the customer?
Ask yourself, "How well does your firm know the customer?"

Can your team describe the customer clearly with a good sense of their age, education, aspirations and pains? Can you easily find real examples of your "typical" customer? You may not have the budget of Motorola, but that doesn't excuse your team from doing their homework.

Does the customer have a pain or desire you resolve?
Although the target customer's pain or desire is not explicitly mentioned in the positioning statement, it is very important that it exist. A customer that has no pain or desire for your solution is the wrong customer. A vegan is not a good target customer for a brand that is made out of meat. In the case of the Motorola Droid, they know that iphone super-users can be pained by the lack of multi-tasking. They know that while it isn't a pain, a larger screen is something they desire.

Are you really sure?
Ask your team: "Have we missed the blindingly obvious?" For instance, if you are developing a solution for routine laboratory analysis, is the primary target audience the laboratory technician who uses the solution? Or is it the laboratory manager who makes the buying decision? If you aren't sure, you must figure it out before you do any further branding.

What about Motorola? They have targeted a tiny market - disaffected iPhone users. Why wouldn't they copy Apple? After all, when Apple introduced the iPhone, they originally took great pains to sell it as a... phone. Apple didn't want to scare people away by being technologic out the gate. But in the case of the Droid, the choice of this niche customer was conscientious and in keeping with technology marketing best practices when introducing a cutting edge device in a highly competitive market - they targeted the early-adopters, the super influencers. And since - secretly - Motorola knows it can't kill the iPhone, it is actually trying to make the early adopters evangelists for the Droid brand, effectively pushing the desirability of Blackberry, Palm, Windows, Nokia and others down in the mind of the market.

It is key to remember that positioning must be adaptive. Unlike a brand promise or personality which should be designed to endure, positioning should change as it needs in reaction to, and anticipation of changes with the customers, competitors, and the brand's own capabilities. Motorola will soon expand its positioning to bring more customers into the fold.

 

Accommodating, Modest, Seasoned, Proud, Serene, Rebellious, Straight Shooter, Reflective, Thinker, Value Freedom, Accurate, Value Special Rituals, Mr. Status Quo, Warrior, Adventurous, Neurotic, Aggressive, Nurturing, Altruistic, Ambitious, Analytical, Outrageous, Artistic, Passionate, Athletic, People-Oriented, Brilliant, Perfectionist, Calming, Playful, Caring, Powerful, Clown, Detail Oriented, Comfortable, Revolutionary, Competitive, Pure, Confident, Quick, Critical, Relaxed, Disruptive, Demanding, Edgy, Scientific, Efficient, Enthusiastic, Friendly, Sexy, Experimental, Fun, Feared, Growing, Flexible, Happy, Healer, Sophisticated, Helpful, Spiritual, Holistic, Spontaneous, Hunter, Stylish, Idealist, Shy, Imaginative, Tactical, Impulsive, Simple, Take-Charge Attitude, Innovative, Thrifty, Intelligent, Traditional, Intimate, Trickster, Intuitive, Trusting, Laid Back, Value Routines, Liberated, Vibrant, Life Long Learner, Visionary, Manager, Optimistic, Organized, Serious, Protective, Vibrant, Soulfull, Excentic, Conservative, Connected

The reason so many mission statements are dumb is because the idea that every company needs one is dumb.

There are some organizations that need to decide who they are, why they are here, and what they do. Salt of the earth stuff. For them mission statements make sense.

Some companies are fueled by vision, and are attracted to vision statements. Specifically, what they aim to concretely manifest in the future.

Others are driven by their values, so doing their corporate values makes perfect sense.

Purely competitive firms can focus their day around their positioning statement.

Passionate firms can seek a statement that combines their passion with their customer's need. They are perfect candidates for a brand promise statement.

But does a company need all of the above to succeed?

I believe that marketers and branders must be pragmatic. Understand the culture, the need, and only then recommend the simplest thing that will work.

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Mission Statements make me cry. And not in a good way like at the end of Star Wars. (Don't tell anyone).

Pass me a tissue and I'll tell you why...

Mission Statements trick teams. Teams desire cohesion. They long for alignment. When it is missing, they seek to fill that void - urgently. Since the "mission statement" is probably the most firmly entrenched meme in business, they say "We need one!" And then the fun begins. Legion are the times I've heard horror stories about the creation of mission statements, from the front line to mahogany row. Mission statements are supposed to focus an organization, give it purpose, but usually they lead teams to sad, forgotten places.

Mission Statements are mangled. The other day, someone told me that the FedEx mission statement is "The World on Time." Sorry, this is the FedEx Mission Statement. People routinely mix-up mission statements, vision statements, positioning statements, you name it statements. It amazes me that a business idea can be so routinely mangled, and yet still live on.

Mission Statements are impractical. The ultra-rare quality mission statement is a mash up of "What is our purpose?" "Why do we exist?" "How do we achieve our vision?" Try and answer these questions for yourself in one to three sentences. Good luck! The very idea of a mission statement is too big to metabolize and operationalize. Only when you take the time to unpack the mission statement into its component parts, does it become meaningful - if you are lucky. That's why so few people know the Mission Statement of their firm.

Mission Statements are innately hard to facilitate. As with brand development, the more people you add to the decision making team, the higher the likelihood of a host of decision making pathologies that can sabotage the best intended project. That's the reason you can get ten brilliant team members in a room and come out with a mission statement that is as dumb as a rock.

In my next post, I'll let you in on my dirty little Mission Statement secret.

With their "Droid Does" campaign, Motorolla is using the “Repositioning the Competition” strategy, using the iPhone's entrenched brand status as the way to get sticky in our minds. It is the same strategy used when Avis fought Hertz with their classic "“We're number two. We try harder” brand strategy. Key difference here is that the positioning is narrowly focused on the uber geek, male, early adopter.

It is great to see this gutsy positioning, but will it work?

To succeed, positioning must be three things: unique, relevant and compelling.

The Droid positioning is unique - no doubt about it. The hardware, software, and styling all stand apart. The aggressive, robotic branding is world's away from any competitor. Actually, it is the first superphone commercial that some attitude a la Apple's landmark 1984 television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott. The contrast is actually delicious. Apple branded itself as the human, destroying the machine. Droid is branded as the machine.

The Droid positioning is relevant - superphones are the new PCs, and consumers want choice, especially if they are with Verizon.

But is the positioning compelling? I'm an early adopter and don't find any of the things "Droid Does" to be a compelling reason to desire this new device. Higher resolution screen? Nice to have? Yes. Need to have? No. Multi-tasking? The same. And so on.

Where the strategy does succeed, is in manipulating me quite successfully into thinking that the Droid must be the number two choice. Suddenly, Blackberry, Palm, Windows, and the other brands out there seem a lot less relevant, a lot less unique, and far less compelling.

This is the first time I've heard of Graham Brown. But it won't be the last. We're now following @GrahamDBrown on Twitter.

He's a Brit from the other side of the pond. Works for Mobile Youth TV.

Graham does an exceptional job of highlighting how the traditional advertising companies are -- for youth -- based on the wrong mental model. 

Here's the video. If you are pressed for time, the Slideshare below is equally good.

http://www.CustomersAreTheBrand.com 

http://www.mobileyouth.org