How do you position a brand? In our role as communications consultants, we regularly suggest that our customers implement “referent” or expert strategies.
These strategies rest on two main pillars: vision and numbers, and, as usual, meticulous execution.
Positioning means deciphering: providing market figures
An organization that provides market trends, volumes and segmentations demonstrates its perfect knowledge of the market at any given moment, as well as its medium-term evolution.
As a result, it’s a key player in the market, which can be quantified.
What figures are we talking about?
- pooling of existing studies – combining data from several studies that have already been made public enables us to put into perspective uses that others would not have identified.
example: evolution of the number of smartphones / region + evolution /volume of e-commerce → estimated share of m-commerce - create market studies with recognized survey institutes – think upstream about objectives, for example:
- demonstrate to your prospects that they should work with you
- evaluate household recycling rates on a packaging-by-packaging basis
- etc.
- use your own data – If the figures are significant enough, they attest to your “weight” in your sector, which strengthens your position.
- aggregation of tracked vs. recycled packaging volumes,
- economic impact of compliance for your customers
- number of direct and indirect jobs (created or promoted)
- etc.
Positioning a brand means having and sharing a vision
The spokesperson must convey the company’s vision and ambition, and know how to communicate it. A vision (or clear objectives) generates enthusiasm and support.
If we take the example of the autonomous vehicle, which vision do you know? Tesla’s or Renault’s? Elon Musk’s or Carlos Ghosn / Luca de Meo’s?
To enable an organization to represent its objectives (or mission), it needs to be embodied by a spokesperson (or spokespersons) who can take the time to explain the direction, values and temporality of the company’s ambitions.
It is on this condition – not the only one, but absolutely necessary – that the company stands out and becomes an object of interest for its stakeholders: customers, employees, investors, prospects and partners.
Secret Sauce: deployment
Sorry for the understatement: the best strategies are nothing without masterful execution.
Deploying a referent strategy requires a lot of talking and reading, writing and planning.
Exchange and reading
To understand (etymologically = “to take” + “with you”) our customers’ vision, to make it our own and to confront it with the reality of their competitors and the media, we need both to read a lot and to exchange a lot with the person who will carry this message.
Analyzing the positions taken by other players, the hottest news stories covered by the media and journalists’ expectations in terms of different angles, new perspectives… are all factors to be taken into account in order to pre-empt a subject or simply allow a different voice to be heard.
Writing and planning
Writing is what really gives shape to the vision; each text must be “comfortable” for the spokesperson, rather like a new pair of shoes. Don’t sacrifice style (stiletto), ease (birkenstocks) or attitude (cowboy boots). The spokesperson has to get to grips with the formulas and make them his or her own.
Obviously, a single speech is not enough to build this image. That’s why it’s essential to write a lot, to find new and complementary angles, and to plan releases over time, ideally to coincide with major high points (bills, trade shows, chestnuts, etc.).
The principle is simple. The execution is essential.
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