brand pyramid is king!
Of all the brand positioning tools I've used the pyramid is my favourite. The process of creating one is a small but perfectly formed exercise that helps you frame your business or product, and can very quickly transform your go to market messaging into something concise, customer centric and consistent across your range of channels.
Working bottom up...
Features and attributes: Identify 5 of these. What are your tangible products and services e.g. provide news, coaching, market research, paid media, professional services, job adverts etc
Functional benefits: Again, identify 5. How do these services and products help your customers? e.g. career development, making informed choices, promoting their brand
Emotion benefits: How do these functional benefits make your customer feel? This is a really powerful layer. When you get it right they become the statements that provide the eureka moment or land the sale
Core brand values: What do these attributes and benefits suggest you are as a brand? What do you stand for? It's a really empowering and helpful to embrace three defining values and use them to refine future ideas
The brand idea: Finally, pull together a sentence of intent using the concepts you have set out in the pyramid
Adding an optional 'personality' layer can also help hone your tone of voice but isn't essential.
Voila! A simple yet effective tool which you can apply to your portfolio or a product within it.
The process of creating your own pyramid might help identify where there are weaknesses. You could even create a "goal" pyramid to inform your product development strategy according to market or customer need.
