{"id":2170,"date":"2024-11-13T10:40:11","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T15:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/?p=2170"},"modified":"2024-11-13T10:40:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T15:40:12","slug":"youre-asking-the-wrong-question-about-brand-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/youre-asking-the-wrong-question-about-brand-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"You&#8217;re Asking The Wrong Question About Brand Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/davegerhardt_cmos-what-is-keeping-you-up-at-night-right-activity-7262430263463264256-eGXI?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dave Gerhardt<\/a> recently shared insights from CMOs about what keeps them up at night. One response caught my attention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Positioning. We have a new brand and identity. How do we position the company&#8217;s new identity to both our existing customers and the market? While not disrupting everything else in the &#8216;always on&#8217; side of the business?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about positioning that&#8217;s costing companies millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Most Get This Wrong<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>When companies worry about &#8220;positioning a new identity,&#8221; they&#8217;re already thinking about it backward. Here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your brand isn&#8217;t what you say it is. It&#8217;s what you fundamentally are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about the automotive industry:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Volvo doesn&#8217;t &#8220;position safety&#8221; &#8211; they ARE safety<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>BMW doesn&#8217;t &#8220;market performance&#8221; &#8211; they ARE performance<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mercedes doesn&#8217;t &#8220;communicate status&#8221; &#8211; they ARE status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Power of Perception<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike doctors bound by anatomy or athletes bound by physics, positioning operates in the limitless realm of perception. Red Bull proves this perfectly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>They don&#8217;t sell taste<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They don&#8217;t sell energy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They sell human potential<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When Red Bull sends a man to space to jump back to Earth, that&#8217;s not marketing. That&#8217;s their positioning manifested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Real Questions You Should Be Asking<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What concept could you own in your customers&#8217; minds?<br><\/strong>Not features. Not benefits. Not identity. What fundamental concept could be yours?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why does this concept matter now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What&#8217;s broken in your industry?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Why do traditional solutions fail?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How will you fix it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How will every business decision reinforce this concept?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Product development<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Customer experience<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Employee culture<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Market communication<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Beyond Identity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Look at category kings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Salesforce<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Didn&#8217;t just rebrand software<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Declared &#8220;Software is Dead&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Created cloud computing category<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Airbnb<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Didn&#8217;t just position a new lodging brand<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Owned &#8220;Belong Anywhere&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Redefined travel itself<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tesla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Didn&#8217;t just launch an electric car brand<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Owned the future of transportation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Challenged the entire hydrocarbon economy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Path Forward<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Find Your Atomic Core<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What concept could you own?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Why can only you own it?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How will you defend it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Align Everything<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Every decision should reinforce your concept<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every touchpoint should strengthen your position<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every employee should understand their role<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Let Identity Follow Naturally<br><\/strong>Your visual identity, voice, and brand elements should emerge from your positioning &#8211; not define it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Uncomfortable Truth<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Your &#8220;always on&#8221; business isn&#8217;t separate from positioning. It should reinforce your ownership of mental territory every single day. If you&#8217;re worried about disrupting your &#8220;always on&#8221; business with a new identity, you&#8217;re solving the wrong problem. The real challenge is owning a concept so completely that your identity becomes its natural expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Remember<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re not in the business of positioning identities. You&#8217;re in the business of owning mental territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s not a marketing challenge. That&#8217;s your fundamental business strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The question isn&#8217;t, &#8220;How do we position our new identity?&#8221;<br>The question is, &#8220;What concept will we own in our customers&#8217; minds?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Answer that, and everything else, including your identity, will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Gerhardt recently shared insights from CMOs about what keeps them up at night. One response caught my attention: &#8220;Positioning. We have a new brand and identity. How do we position the company&#8217;s new identity to both our existing customers and the market? While not disrupting everything else in the &#8216;always on&#8217; side of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions\/2172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}