THE CULTURE RESET: Unsettled Times. Unsettled Culture. Unsettled Brands.

It's time to address the challenges your business is adapting to today, and capitalize on it for years to come. How? Through proprietary insights that determine how generations will make their purchasing decisions.

These unsettled times we're living in have shattered the fundamental meaning of brands. Importantly, this is a "cultural brand leveling" moment for consumers and marketers. A moment in time to smartly re-examine, reposition, reinforce, even reformulate your brand to achieve new revenue goals.

Enter THE CULTURE RESET PLATFORM -- designed to create and maintain brand saliency in these changing times. The platform provides proprietary thinking and key consumer connection points. 

We unlock Generational Consumer Resonance, Cultureography, Narratives and Visualization for defining and optimizing your brands ultimate 'Culture Truth'. They are guaranteed outcomes.

What are the key steps you ask?

1. Virtual Briefing -- A complimentary 30 minute briefing session to take you deeper into the entire platform solutions package and guaranteed outcomes on how people decide what they decide and why they value what they value.

2. Fast Track Thinking Session -- We conduct two 90 minute sessions where we arrive at a group consensus, common vision and action points. It’s our highly collaborative approach to arriving at an initial culture truth platform statements.

3. Synthesize & Shape -- We agree, focus, and shape what we’ve uncovered into final culture platform statements.

4. Generational Resonance -- Recognizing that all truths are generationally shaped, we will provide a structure insuring the message is universally powerful, as well as applicable to that consumer's journey.

5. Visualization -- We create visual design cues to bring these truth statements to life for consumers.

6. Testing (optional) -- Available if you so choose using our video research network.

7. Final Culture Reset Recommendation -- The final strategic roadmap that defines your brands ultimate culture truth along with key narratives for generational resonance going forward.

Why Brands Need to Take Bigger Risks in 2020

Positioning 101

Market positioning refers to a brand’s ability to influence consumer perception, especially relating to competitors.

Think of the Coke vs. Pepsi ‘feud’. Though they both generate a lot of revenue and nobody can complain about that, you’ll find a lot of consumers defending one over the other. That’s because, for that person, one of the brands has a stronger positioning that connects with them.

The objective in brand and market positioning is to have such a clear identity of a brand or product, that the average consumer identifies you with it, and not your competitors, even if you are both offering virtually the same thing.

Why You Need to Take Risks

It’s really difficult to reinvent the wheel in 2020 when it seems like everything has been done. Still, even if the strategy itself is nothing new, it’s important for brands to think outside the box when trying to improve their market positioning.

For instance, let’s assume you want to sell handbags, and go on the idea that said handbag is a statement of luxury. You have two other brands, your competitors, doing the same thing. What’s worse, you most likely have very similar audiences, and your ads and campaigns reach the same users.

If this is the case, then put yourself in the shoes of a buyer: with three brands selling the same thing, in the exact same way, how could they know which one to choose? What separates the three of them? Sure, if they go on a little research journey they could find said differences, but that’s already a step too far because you have no guarantee they will actually do that.

Without taking risks, your brand could potentially stay buried in the crowd, and while there are ways to get out of it at one point, it could be difficult and time-consuming.

How Can You Set Yourself Apart?

There are several types of positioning strategies:

• Product benefits and attributes;

• Product price;

• Product quality;

• Competitors, or making audience members think you are better than them.

 To know which strategy works best, you have to keep in mind two essential things:

• What are your strengths?

• What are your competitors’ weaknesses?

For example, if you’re selling similar handbags as two of your competitors, you need to find the thing that sets you apart, and the things your competitors lack. Perhaps in terms of quality and benefits, you are on the same plan. But, your prices may be a lot better, making your handbags more affordable. Then, you can leverage the idea that luxury and style can be achievable for everyone, in spite of what your competitors are doing. It could be a risk because people associate high prices with luxury, but this angle could potentially be strong enough to get people to notice your brand.

Over to You: Create the Strategy Now

Market positioning is a complex process that requires a lot of time and effort, but given the high levels of competition businesses often face, it’s not something you want to skip.

10 WAYS TO KILL A BRAND

Companies will spend a lot of time and money on creating an effective branding strategy. But mistakes can, and often do happen during this crucial phase. Here’s our guide on the worst things you can do to kill your brand and how to avoid them. Now these might seem like nothing new, but it doesn't hurt to have a refresher.

1. Using Poor Quality Visuals
Or worse - no visuals at all. Pictures are more memorable than words, and humans tend to think in pictures. Attention spans are getting smaller and smaller, so make sure to invest in something that connects with the visual thinker.

2. Inconsistent Branding
Your company needs to use the same name, logo, and tagline across multiple mediums and channels, both inside and outside the business. The name on your sign for your brick-and-mortar location? It has to be same as what’s on your business cards and website. Keep it consistent, invest in brand guidelines.

3. No Employee Training
Your employees are walking, talking advertisements for your company. Train them well on how to be effective ambassadors for your company. Implement a Brand 101 course with monthly courses to ensure your message is being properly conveyed.

4. Not Tracking Marketing Efforts
Each time a new customer contacts your company, it’s a good idea to have your employees ask them how they found out about your brand. Keep a master list of these answers to inform where you should focus your future marketing efforts.

5. Not Leveraging Word-of-Mouth Advertising
Your previous clients and customers are your greatest marketing assets. Use their testimonials and quote them in your ads and brochures. A real, authentic voice might be just the validation someone needs to click the buy button.

6. Using Old Marketing Materials
Many small businesses will make this mistake. They invest heavily in a brochure or sales letter, order thousands of copies, and then use the material for many years until it’s all gone. The marketing quickly goes stale. Instead, order smaller increments of marketing materials, and refresh them frequently with new content and mediums.

7. Confusing Consumers with Too Many Choices
We get it; you’re a jack of all trades. But that doesn’t mean you need to advertise as such. Instead, focus on a core offering and build your branding strategy around it. You don’t want to make the mistake of confusing the public and overwhelming them with too many choices. Analysis paralysis is real.

8. Unbelievable Taglines
Trust is critical for fostering a relationship with your customers. Don’t use an unrealistic tagline like “We Do it All.” Do you really do it all? Play it safe here and use a believable tagline your customers can trust, and that’s memorable.

9. Jumping on Trends
Here’s the thing about trends - they come and go. But you want your brand to stick around for the long haul. Avoid trends and cliches when building your brand.

10. Not Welcoming New Customers
Brands need to think logically and convey a warm, welcoming tone. You may have a local market you’re targeting, but we live in a global economy. Brands should try to welcome customers from diverse backgrounds by being culturally sensitive, inclusive, investing in translation software, and using language the average person can understand and appreciate.

Know where successful branding starts. Be aware of these top ten branding mistakes and avoid them when launching your new company, product, or service.