The goal of any brand positioning exercise is to develop a brand promise that is unique, compelling and believable. Any successful brand positioning project must evaluate all potential brand promises against these three criteria – unique, compelling and believable. The winning promise must deliver against all three criteria or it won’t work. The only way to assess this is to measure each of these for each brand promise option with each key target audience.
As an example, we explored the following potential brand promises for Rochester, New York. This is how one target audience, current residents, evaluated them:
Potential Brand Promise |
Explanation |
Unique |
Compelling |
Believable |
Gateway to the Finger Lakes |
Closest city to the Finger Lake wine region |
High |
High |
Very high |
Small town feel, big city culture |
Medium sized city with friendly people, unusually large concentration of cultural institutions and events for a city its size, largest number of cultural workers per capita |
Medium |
High |
Very High |
Where everything is only 20 minutes away |
Generally true and often repeated, due to smaller size of metropolitan area, extensive highway system and lack of traffic |
Medium |
High |
Extremely High |
Imaging capital of the US |
Major base for Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, CooperVision and dozens of other imaging companies, University of Rochester & RIT have unique imaging/optics programs |
High |
Medium |
High |
Renewable energy capital of the US |
Rapidly emerging concentration of alternative energy companies, including GMs Fuel Cell Activities Research Center |
Medium |
Medium |
Low |
The place more scientists and engineers call home |
Very high concentration of engineers and scientists per capita, highest number of patents per capita |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium High |
East coast progressive, Midwest friendly |
History of progressiveness, home of Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass and other social and religious reformers, closer in proximity and friendliness to Cleveland and the Midwest than New York City and the East Coast |
Medium |
Medium High |
Medium High |
Higher education Mecca |
18 Rochester area colleges and universities plus 4 seminaries, more than 62,000 students |
Low |
Medium High |
Medium High |
Music City |
Home of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Rochester International Jazz Festival and two music schools including the world famous Eastman School of Music, numerous musical events every night of the week year-round |
Low |
Medium High |
Medium |
New Yorks North Coast |
On the southern shore of Lake Ontario |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
When you are ready to settle down |
Great schools, attractive neighborhoods, affordable housing, an abundance of family activities |
Low |
Medium |
High |
Just perfect for families |
Same as above |
Low |
High |
High |
So how should one interpret these results? First, only promises that are both unique and compelling should even be considered as finalists. While it would be nice to be high in believability too, sometimes a promise’s believability can be increased with the right proof points. Given this analysis, only “Gateway to the Finger Lakes” makes the cut. However, given the relatively high combined scores for all three criteria, the following should also be considered: “Small town feel, big city culture” and “Where everything is only 20 minutes away.”
While someone might be tempted to choose “Just perfect for families” because it is highly compelling and believable to current residents, it would miss the point that those qualities are not perceived to be unique to other options. Similarly, while “Imaging capital of the US” has both high uniqueness and believability, it should not be chosen because it is only somewhat compelling.
Among residents, these results paint the picture of a very livable medium sized city with a highly educated population, rich cultural offerings and a high quality of life. While not unique or even exciting, this is a compelling mix of attributes to many people.
This analysis should also be conducted for other key audiences such as businesses and tourists/visitors and their arbiters. The ideal promise would be unique and compelling to the most important audience(s), while not having negative connotations among the other audiences.
This analysis can be applied to any type of brand and should be conducted using statistically projectable quantitative research.
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One comment
Take Flight
May 23, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Can you give an example of how a brand positioning or marketing mantra drives down to a brand promise – we often confuse them as one in the same.
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