Perhaps the most important brand management activity is positioning the brand properly. A key component in positioning is the brand promise. Strong brands make credible, relevant, and distinctive brand promises. Even more importantly, they fulfill these every day.
By definition, consumption is ritualistic and all rituals have heroes. Consumers become actors that play the role of the hero to satisfy their ego through consumption. When identifying with a brand and consuming its product, we hope it will transform us into a better, heroic person.
The context in which a brand is used can provide huge positioning opportunities for brands either by understanding the context in which a brand is already used or by associating your brand with a specific usage occasion (for example, “Take a Break, Take a KitKat”).
Marketers like to look into the future, but it often makes sense to also look into the past of a brand and try to identify forgotten associations that have helped the brand succeed. What type of associations should you be looking for? Well, it really depends on the task and the brand. But this can be anything from reconnecting with the original intent or vision of the founders of the brand, understanding what factors have...
Most categories operate based on specific assumptions (fast food advertising always needs to show the food, one can only buy a new car at a dealership, banking must be a stodgy experience) and follow a certain set of conventions that have usually proven successful in the past and that are generally followed by all the competitors in the category.
