Buyer2Brand

Positioning vs. Branding

Many of the same tech marketers I have interviewed as part of this blogging project negate the importance of Branding while holding up Positioning as the ultimate strategy for winning minds and markets. This distinction is important to address, as the two disciplines are closely related, if not two sides of the same coin.

Both Positioning and Branding are driven and defined by precise differentiation from competitive alternatives. The difference is in the direction of the communication. A vendor’s positioning is what it says to the market, and its brand is what the market says about the company in reply (and by extension its product or service). The vendor asserts its competitive positioning, executes against this in the market, and then is rewarded or punished with its brand. If the two perspectives contradict, then execution of the positioning has failed and the brand is broken. In the IT world of the complex, considered purchase, listening to what customers really think about you and your offering is of ultimate importance in this symbiotic conversation between Position and Brand.

Positioning is largely an internal consensus exercise. A methodology for getting all company stakeholders marching in the same direction. It is informed by present market conditions and competitive realities, to be sure, but is often unable to predict actual customer application of the technology or changing market conditions. Often target segments and value propositions are dictated by who buys what and why.

Without customers, there can be no brand (no, a logo is not a brand). A startup that has yet to attract its first customers can assert its positioning, but does not yet have a brand. It is talking to itself. It has yet to fulfill promises, built no reputation, and received no grades from the market. At the beginning, Positioning drives everything.

But a few months after a startup celebrates its first live customers, an early brand identity can be researched and formulated. It is at this stage, when company and product brand are one in the same, that brand auditing is easiest and consistent brand building can be instituted within the marketing organization. As the company continues to grow, its internal corporate culture and values emerge to further inform its brand personality. With market success, the distinctions between brand and position come into clearer focus.

Mike's definition of Brand

Since I began this blog by comparing talking about brand to discussions of the Great Almighty, it's only fair that I impart to you, in the interest of full disclosure from the start, my own personal religion. 

I decided to begin my mission evangelizing branding over 2 years ago, while attending Sandhill Group's Software 2004 conference.  The tone of the conference that March, with the enterprise IT industry still emerging from the downturn of 2001-03, was sullen and introspective.  Why were our sales still so flat?  Why did our industry suck at marketing? Why did our customers hate us?  I added to these laments one of my own: Why does my industry not respect branding?

In the course of my ongoing primary research on the state of branding in the B2B tech world, I've discussed the Brand Diety with many fellow IT marketing professionals.  I've heard brand gurus from the B2C world evangelize their unique dogma, and seen way too many powerpoints about the future of our religion as a whole.  Some descriptions include: "Brand is a personality."  "Brand is a promise."  "Brand is your DNA."  So what's the definition that fits our industry best? 

Brand is What Your Customers Say About You.

Simply put, your brand is the grade you receive from customers, prospects, investors and the marketplace at large on your ability to fulfill the need you promised to address.  Did you make the pain you targeted indeed go away?  Do you always deliver as advertised?  Is your reputation one to be trusted? 

A vendor cannot buy its brand.  It's not a website or an ad campaign or a press release.  It's created over time by a company's consistent behavior in the marketplace, by how the company sets expectations and then exceeds or disappoints.  The vendor asserts its competitive positioning, executes against this in the market, and then is rewarded or punished by the brand it receives in reply.  Customers define your brand, with or without your help.  In this way, brand is about perception...and reality. 

Brand Happens.  So B2B technology vendors better start joining the conversation.

Talking about Brand is like talking about God

It has been said that talking about brand is like talking about God.  Everyone has their own definition and beliefs.  Still, I've taken on a new professional mission - to evangelize the power of brand to transform the way my industry sells enterprise technology and satisfies customers.

To understand the current perception of branding and its value for the B2B IT industry, I have undertaken an ongoing qualitative research study, interviewing some of the leading technology marketing minds on their branding dogma.  In this blog, we'll examine and discuss findings from this project.

Buyer2Brand will strive never to be preachy in its tone, but instead present the beliefs and opinions of minds greater than my own, relate insights on the news with links to point of origin, and analyze emerging trends and best practices as asserted by sources we trust in common.

If you are a senior-level technology marketer, and would like to be interviewed, please drop me a line.