Every brand has the potential to be interesting.

Step One: Define how the brand sees itself
The most important feature of building a brand is to understand how the brand wants to be seen by its public. We call this the “brand personality”.  A simple but effective 10 step dive that draws comparisons between how the brand owners relate themselves to other brands enables us to create a brand story to visualize and define their brand vision.

Step Two: Own a difference
The role of brand marketing is quite simple: “define how you are different than your competitors and show it… and repeat”. Really when you think about it “if you’re not different than your competition than why should I deal with you”.

So how do you figure out how you’re different? Simple but it takes a time a you research the crap out of it and then do more… your job as a brand is to know your competition better than you know yourself. Once you have defined your difference, which we refer to as your “position”, then you can move on to the next step.

Step Three: Continually telling how you’re different
Now that you have defined how you’re different than your competitors comes the most crucial aspect of branding the creation of your “positioning” or how you say you’re different. This is the most important part of a brand development because a brand is not created overnight a brand is built on through the continual reinforcement of explaining and showing how your are different than your competition.

And even more important factor is time… a “positioning” is not a disposable advertising tagline, it is a long term part of the fabric of your brand. Repeat, build and protect… don’t let your new marketing VP or your new agency throw away what your brand is just because they want to change…

Take a look at Maytag and how their 1967 positioning of “the Maytag repairman is the loneliest job in the world” is still an important asset of their brand today.

Let me know how we can help you define and build your brand… because that’s what we do. The Kawartha Custom Cut Stone branding featured above is an interesting example of how a positioning of “real stone brings things to life” is elevating a brand above the competition. Contact me to find out more about how we are bringing this brand to life.

cheers grant ivens
brand surgeon |  rocket scientist  |  educator
say what! communications corp.ivens@saywhat.com