Brand Repositioning VS Company Repositioning

Brand Repositioning VS Company Repositioning.

I am often asked about the difference between brand repositioning and company repositioning and why I would do either. Allow me to explain the difference.

The choice to reposition your brand assumes that your company is in the right market, that you have a decent product and that it works as promised. It also assumes that you have people that are able to or willing to buy your product. However, something has happened with your brand – either the communication is off, the feel of your brand doesn’t connect, or maybe the brand has been damaged, creating the need to reposition it.

At this point you need to look at a redesign or a refresh. You’ll need to focus on the target audience and the kinds of things that draw them in. Your brand should reflect this image for your specific audience. Although it is your brand, it is less about trying to focus on yourself and much more about focusing on your target audiences. Frankly, if you’re branded poorly or your brand is off, it’s probably because you focused more on what you like than the people you’re targeting.

The choice to reposition your company assumes that you probably missed the mark by choosing the wrong industry, launched the wrong product, or the timing may be off. Now you need to hunt for another place to solve a problem and go into the market solve it.

I remember a company that had a great technology for helping to improve wound healing. You could put the technology into a wound, and it would help the healing process go faster. They recognized that the human application was going to take probably five to ten years for approval, so, they decided to focus their product on animal application   Rather than focusing on dogs, cats and farm animals, they went into thoroughbred horse racing. There is a lot of money in horse racing, and that’s where they launched the product. It was a matter of recognizing what position was going to be the right thing for the company in that time and place, while also considering if they could make money, solve this pain, and make a difference.

On the flip side, I was hired by a private equity firm to look at one of their portfolio companies. They had launched into the convenience store market with a product that helped convenience stores become more efficient. As I did the analysis on the convenience store industry, I found that it was contracting at 25% per year, largely because of competition from Costco and so the industry itself was shrinking.

The problem they were trying to solve was not something that anyone was really willing to look at. They basically had an invention that fixed a problem that no one cared about, in a market that was shrinking. I had to share the bad news, they stopped the investment, and everybody went home. That was an extreme case where they really couldn’t reposition the business. If you have a company that has a good idea, good product, but maybe the market you are focused on doesn’t care about it isn’t willing to buy it, that might be something to consider.

I’ve worked with lots of companies that had to shift markets and products   or that have had to change their brand all together. In each case, there’s a very specific process for how to do it properly.

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