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Brand Positioning Agency

Identifying a brand territory

In any market, a successful brand has to have a clear positioning (something that is true to the brand value and has the ability to distinguish it from competitors).

To get to this, we often go through a process of creating around half a dozen potential territories that a brand could occupy. The territories are deliberately quite different from each other in order to explore the strengths and weaknesses of each, i.e. the appeal, the relevance, the credibility and the differentiation.

Crafting great briefs

Great work is inspired by great briefs. Put your best foot forward for your brand messaging with a clear roadmap.

We work with brands and organisations using insight into the target audience and our experience to create powerful briefs.

Sharpening a brand’s architecture

Many companies have identified the territory to occupy but have an existing brand architecture that’s either generic or written in a way that isn’t easy to use or activate. These are often defined by pretty predictable language and uninspiring values. But a bad verbal identity makes for a bad visual identity.

As a specialist brand positioning agency, we work with companies to create a strong message, sharpening their architecture to make it more fit for purpose.

Rather than reinvent the architecture, we revisit it to explore which elements are working, which aren’t, and where the opportunities are for new and more compelling thoughts.

In crafting brand architectures, we look at your market position and where you could be. We focus on differentiation and activation, so often get involved throughout the organisation to embed the thinking and ensure it’s interpreted into behaviour across the business.

Branding from the inside out

This isn’t just about potential customers. Making sure employees not only understand the brand they work for, but also buy into it, is crucial. Whether they’re start-ups or well-established companies, service or product brands, they need to be consistent. They also need to create engagement with different consumer and trade audiences.

We deliver rebrand programmes that ensure employees become powerful advocates for their employer brand and undertake behaviours that reflect and enrich it.

 

Researching through Qual LiteTM 

Qualitative research can sometimes be seen as time-consuming, expensive or glaringly obvious.

Qual LiteTM has been specifically designed to counter any of these concerns, informing everything from web design to tone of voice and everything in between. It’s quick (with an average 10-day turnaround from initial briefing to final report) and cost-effective, as we run three groups per evening (the industry standard is two).

Additionally and importantly, we focus on the “need to know” rather than the “nice to know”. This may start with a positioning statement or a deep dive into your overall marketing strategy. Whatever the starting point, we get to the things that matter quickly and always deliver a clear, well thought through client action plan in the context of a workshop-style debrief.

Communicating through Brand Body LanguageTM

It’s more than just a company name. Increasingly, with a communications savvy consumer, how a brand behaves and the signals it gives off is more important than what it says about itself in advertising. A brand positioning strategy with genuine values helps to deliver competitive advantage.

Brand Body LanguageTM uses semiotic analysis to go beyond what a brand says about itself to understand the unspoken signals and subtle codes within the brand make-up.

We generally take a theme relevant to the category and explore the residual and emergent codes around that theme, in and out of category to ensure we’re not limited by category conventions.

This approach tends to work particularly well in categories where brands are pretty much all saying the same thing. From ecommerce to service providers, they might offer something different but churn out the same vague messaging. Our goal is to translate messaging into a better customer experience.

We’ve analysed themes like “community” for the Co-operative, “freshness” for Subway and “leadership” for Microsoft. From social media mentions to ad campaigns, the way we speak really defines the brand experience.

Want to hear more? Take a look at this example of a Brand Voice Workshop and our other case studies.

Inspiring and sustaining “Thought Leadership” programmes

Raising a company or brand’s profile with either the trade or customer audience is obviously important. Whilst profile can be bought, we help brands with limited budgets think their way to leadership. Think of all those customer touchpoints – be they through owned media or earned media – it’s about asserting authority with an authentic tone of voice.

Our structured approach to developing interesting (and validated) points of view allows our clients to own issues and engage audiences. This compelling and provocative content is rooted in insights that have the power to create growth.

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