About 100 years ago the world was in a state where brands were just emerging. Businesses then started realizing that consumers were practically forced to choose between identical products in identical categories — and they needed help picking.
A brand, naming, logo, a familiar image — these became for businesses not just a pretty picture but a promise: that their product is better than hundreds of identical ones — that the soda tastes better, the car burns less fuel, the bandage doesn’t fall off or peel.
Time has passed, but the brand’s main job — helping you stand out and cutting the time it takes to choose — hasn’t changed. Walk into any Korzinka today and head to the sodas: at least 20 unique brands, some with several SKUs on the shelf, some cheaper than others luring you with price, some with a new unique flavor — but there’s probably one drink you grab most often. The one you’re used to. The one your brain recognizes like a familiar face — that’s the one you’ll buy with 80%+ probability.
American journalist Charles Duhigg describes this as the ‘Habit Loop’. The human brain is lazy — it loves predictability, and a brand helps it build that predictability.
Trigger
It's hot, I'm thirsty
Action
I grab my usual brand
Reward
Refreshing, as always
I’m thirsty — I grab brand X — I’m not thirsty, all good. Round and round.
Of course, coming up with a catchy name and a nice logo isn’t enough. Behind every brand sits big strategic work that defines what the brand is about, who needs it, what promise it makes to people, how it’s different from competitors, and what emotions it should instill.
To find a brand’s right spot on the market, a positioning map is used. Say we’re launching a product on a market with 4 competitors:
- A — modern, relatively mid-price segment
- B — very traditional and affordable
- C — traditional and expensive
- D — modern and expensive
If you draw the positioning map, the obviously open niche is the affordable-and-modern quadrant — that’s where the brand should aim.
Unfortunately, drawing the chart isn’t enough to find the right, working niche. You have to understand: is the open niche open because no one’s gotten there yet, or because there’s no demand? Only research can answer that — deep interviews with the audience, surveys online and in the field, communication tests, focus groups.
And even if you do all that and collect the data, you have to interpret it correctly and turn it into a brand strategy — a document that describes in detail what the product is about, what values it carries, how it should be positioned, and what its advertising should look like.
Need a brand strategy?
At Lokals we can help with this. If you’re about to launch a product on the market, or want to sell an existing product more and at a higher price, you need a brand strategy. Leave a request below this article or message us on Telegram — we’ll discuss what we can build together.
