How must marketers keep their brands unique while making them central to their selective groupings?

Industrial branding and retail branding have common issues. While serving entirely different segments and supply chains, they still make similar mistakes. They both have problems striking a balance between centrality and relative individuality.

Providing the right balance between centrality and individuality influences the tactical aspects of strategy such as how the brand will be perceived, and how much of it will be purchased and at what price and in the end, how lucrative it will be.  Traditionally, companies have analyzed brand positioning and business performance separately. To assess performance they have used a different set of strategic tools that map or measure brands on yardsticks such as SOM (share-of-market), AGR% (Average Growth Rate) and profitability.

To improve the strength of a company’s brand it must ultimately connect its brand position with business outcomes. Managers in the coatings, paints, adhesives, sealants and specialty chemicals industries need to determine:

A desired market position;

Make resource allocations and brand strategy decisions;

Track performance against competition over time and

Evaluate strategy on the basis of results.

With this method, companies will discover that centrality and individuality need not be conflicting goals; companies may choose to follow both and profit considerably.

Location & Performance

The creation of a plan for a brand is fairly simple but very time-consuming in its process.  A company would begin this process by first, identifying the geographical market to target: (i.e., global, countries, regional), and market customer segments to be surveyed.  Then, the company would conduct a survey to collect data on key customer’s (along the value streams of activity) observations of the brand’s centrality and individuality on a self-developed scale (1 to 5, or 1-10, etc.).  This data yields unique coordinates for each brand’s position. The plan also captures market performance.

Let’s stop here! Examples of centrality (Central Brands) would be Coca-Cola in soft drinks and McDonald’s in fast foods. These brands are arguably the most representative of their type. These brands shape category dynamics including consumer preferences, pricing and the pace and direction of innovation. Examples of individuality (Uniqueness) would be Bentley or Rolls Royce in automobiles as they stand out from the crowd and avoid competition with widely popular central brands.

Strategic implications of brand positioning on the plan can vary considerably depending on the customer segment, region and other factors. Regardless of where a brand locates on your plan, its position should reflect a company strategy and be consistent with its business model.

For example, Jaguar in the U.S. would be placed high in the ECCENTRIC/Individuality box while Kia would find itself placed in the low TANGENTIAL/Individuality box and midway in its Centrality.

When considering the industries we all serve…the coatings, paints, adhesives, sealants and specialty chemicals industries, (as we did in the Automotive examples) to make this type of analysis accurate and therefore, very useful, one would first segment by product-line. You noticed, we did not compare auto manufactures (Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Fiat-Chrysler) nor would we compare PPG, Sherwin-Williams, AKZO, Forrest, Hentzen, Red Spot, RPM or Cardinal Industries, but would only assess their products in specific market segment.

Dr. Phil Phillips is owner and managing director of CHEMARK Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm specializing in the coatings, paints, adhesives, sealants and specialty chemicals industries.