Why Your Brand Needs A Strong Personality

Some businesses find it difficult to differentiate. Differentiation is key to positionning. It is the factor that makes it easier for customers in your market to not only know but understand what you stand for. Ideally you want your customers to see and understand your brand from your perspective. When customers and you disagree on who you are or what you stand for as a brand you are usually headed for disaster...ask blackberry.

I have been observing the packaged food sector in Cameroon and I am intrigued by the yoghurt sector. This must be a very tough arena to compete in. Packagins are very similar, yoghurts almost always taste the same for all brands even with different flavours and it is a red ocean meaning there are tons of brands trying to appeal to customers. You can also see this with other sectors, say smartphones for example. The features are virtually the same, companies just keep copying each other and competitive advantages are transient rather than durable.

I think companies like Apple and Danone in the tech and packaged food sectors are successful not only because of the product features they offer to customers but because their brands have very strong personalities. Your brand never exists in relation to other brands but in relation to itself. The raison d'être of your brand is not to be better than brand A or brand B, that is a dangerous strategy. What if brands A and B were to suddenly vanish from the market? The competition should never dictate the reason why your brand exists.

Brands that are successful have a strong personality underpinned by the following ingredients according to

Barbara Kahn, a Wharton school professor:

• A target segment is not being all things to all people but identifying then reaching out to the customers you think matter
• A point of difference is not telling your customers you are better than brand A or brand B but giving them a reason or lots of reason ( preferably) to think of you first
• And lastly a frame of reference ie clearly stating the industry or sector you compete in
• All this easily helps you create a positioning statement that showcases the personality of your brand in a market.

Denise Lee Yong puts it much better in this article:

Using brand personality is not simply about developing creative communications; it’s about infusing every aspect of your operations with your unique character. Great brands don’t settle for riding someone else’s wave. They chart their own course and invite the world to navigate around them.