Follow the Arrow – to Brand Leadership
Leadership generates and maintains an audience, plain and simple. For more than 20 years, the team at Big Arrow has been collecting and analyzing market data across more than 100 categories to understand how certain brands become number one in customers’ minds. The result is our Leadership Marketing Model, which we put to work for our clients every day.
We believe a brand is a mutually beneficial relationship built upon a singular promise between a manufacturer and its customers. Brands give products the permission to offer qualities beyond function: a feeling, a connection, an enhanced status or a sense of identity. At some point, people will make a choice, and how they perceive your brand will play a major role in their decision.
Brand leaders receive greater preference and loyalty. People go out of their way to buy a product they perceive to be a leader; they'll even pay more for it. And once customers believe your brand is a leader, they will associate it with a range of positive equities, from trust and value to innovation and high quality, whether you offer it or not.
We began surveying customers of consumer goods, business-to-business and healthcare brands more than 20 years ago to discover why some brands achieve leadership (despite lagging sales), and why some sales front-runners never achieve the perception of leadership. We also identified the specific equities consumers expected from a brand leader, and the value perceived leadership offers.
We found that the most efficient path to leadership – and sustaining it – is to build a consistent brand promise that provides the answer to one (and only one) universal human need consistently and across every interaction:
There are four universal human needs, each of which can be translated into a unique and differentiating core brand strategy.
The need to do something [Doing]
The need to define oneself [Being]
The need to fit in [Belonging]
The need to improve and grow [Growing]
Power Brands: (Doing)
Power brands promise superior efficacy and build their brand promise by being the best solution or best tool for the job. All communications work to prove ownership of the category’s core functional benefit. They provide emotional benefits of confidence, dependability and security – the sense that “you can trust us to perform.” But in order to sustain Power Brand leadership, constant innovation is essential. Tide laundry detergent, for example, has promoted the whitest whites for generations, and sustained that claim via hundreds of product improvements and modifications.
Identity Brands: (Being)
Where Power Brands promote the product as hero, Identity Brands celebrate the user as hero.
Identity Brands, also known as “badge brands,” provide the customer the chance to show the world who they are and how they see themselves, frequently through the use of symbols and logos that double as “identifiers.” Picture the interlocking Chanel C’s or the American Express centurion, and you have a sense of the emotional power of a symbol. Identity Brands rely on lifestyle-focused communications that convey a sense of exclusivity – they’re not for everyone. These brands provide a sense of self-expression and recognition. They validate their customers by telling them it’s okay to be who you are. Levi's Jeans originally symbolized the rebelliousness of youth, but their consumers aged. So what did they do? They introduced stretch denim.
Icon Brands: (Belonging)
Icon Brands offer larger-than-life, highly symbolic emotional promises. They aim to create the perfect world, and invite everyone in. They create worlds filled with harmony, wonder and positive human energy. Their emotional benefits include escape, empathy, wonder, access and inclusion. Disney doesn't talk about rides or films or hotels, but instead creates a sense of wonder and childhood magic – whether it’s in a magical kingdom, a movie theater or on a big red boat.
Explorer Brands: (Growing)
Explorer Brands represent our desire to improve, explore and redefine what’s possible. Their marketing approaches are exciting, and innovative. They go for gold in everything they do, and offer their customers a sense of personal achievement, pride and excitement. While still focused on performance, Explorer Brands leave the functional benefits open for interpretation. Take, for example, Nike’s “Just Do It.” Do what? Home Depot, “You can build it, we can help.” Built what? Where Power Brands offer a specific performance benefit, usually with proof, Explorer Brands let the user define the specific benefits in their own terms.
So how do I choose?
Once we identify a brand’s physical attributes and functional benefits, we assess them against each of the four universal human needs, and determine which connection would provide the largest opportunity for leadership. We then establish the path of greatest opportunity and least resistance. While there is no wrong way to connect with customers, there is a best way: the one that allows you to create authentic relationships in ways not yet provided to the customers within the category.
Today, hundreds of brands across a variety of different markets and audiences, from consumer, to business-to-business and professional live in our database. Each of these brands’ strategies, messages and communications have been benchmarked and categorized, where surprising consistencies emerge, regardless of their category or specialty audience. We find that Power Brands focus on the product itself and how well it performs. They frequently offer no less than two visible demonstrations of the benefit. Identity Brands focus on their users and craft messages and executions that feature lifestyles and aspirations. Icon brands rely on heavy use of symbolism and mythology, and rarely discuss features and benefits. And Explorer Brands always promise a better “you,” and leave it up to the viewer to interpret what that is.
Once a client selects their optimal quadrant, we benchmark their brand against the communications strategies of previous leaders within that quadrant. In a way, our communication strategies are already laid out for us. We simply “follow the leaders.”
There is no wrong choice.
Leadership can be achieved only by delivering a different universal need (i.e. occupying a different space) than your competitors. Look at McDonalds and Burger King, two global burger-central fast food chains. It would be silly for both of them to position themselves as Power brands (best tasting), because they would cancel each other out. Same with Viagra and Cialis. Or Visa and MasterCard. Each answers a unique universal need (i.e. occupying a unique position) and promises their customers two very different experiences, even with similar functional benefits.
Research. Analyze. Commit. Stick.
It’s that simple. Each of these for quadrants provides ample focus and flexibility, regardless of audience or market. They promote creative exploration, while making sure everything produced has purpose, builds the brand and executes the strategy. Driving your brand to greener pastures is an exciting task. No one has to go it alone. At Big Arrow, we’ll draw the map and plot the course.
All you have to do is follow the arrow.