Branding vs Positioning – They only work in the right order

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Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:

My name is Liz Scully. I’m a business strategist.

For many years I worked with some of the best ad agencies in the world. In fact, I spent about a decade working with Saatchis and McCann Erickson and Ogilvy.

So I have spent a lot of time discussing the difference between branding and positioning. And it’s what I’d like to talk about today.

Because branding sits on top of your positioning. And by that, I mean

knowing your brand is not the same as knowing your position.

Let me give you an example.

So the position of my company is that making money is not that hard. And also, that it doesn’t have to be an unhappy or boring experience to have business coaching. In fact, we can have a lot of fun as we make that money. Po-faced is not what my brand is about.

So, it’s not hard to make money and it’s perfectly fine to enjoy yourself.

My brand is completely ridiculous retro images of people from films doing ridiculous things. On my home page, there are three 1940s glamour girls sitting on a bomb for no real reason at all other than the fact that they represent a Mastermind group.

I worked in film for 20 years. So the combination of film and fun and completely ridiculous, sort of explains the positioning of my business.

If you look at my website you cannot for a single second think that hanging out with me is going to be a very corporate, very straight-laced thing.

You might not like the brand but you’re going to get a pretty good idea about the position of what I’m talking about.

The rest of that is things like the logo, that goes on top of the brand so we have logo, brand, positioning.

The reason this is super important is that when you go and have ’brand’ photographs done – and I have some fantastic suggestions for wonderful brand photographers you can work with – if you work with those people they need to know your position not just your brand.

When I last had some brand pictures, and I’m about due to get some more done, the gentleman who did them – he’s a fantastic photographer – he did some very corporate stuff with me. And then we have the images that you will probably have seen on my website of me waving cakes about.

I love cake. In fact, it’s one of our brand values: cake is good. One of our other brand values is: don’t be a dick. Which is really helpful for customer services.

So, under these circumstances, pictures of me waving cakes gives you some of that feeling. When I started doing that the photographer was like ‘Well if you’re going to be silly about it..’

But it is the essence of my brand and my positioning.

And you need to know those things too.

You need to know what the heart of what you do is and then you can think about your brand and how to express that to the world.

So, if you have questions about branding, positioning, strategy – hell, even your logo, come along to one of my Q&A calls. I’d love to discuss this with you.

As you can tell, it’s something I am passionate about. It’s important for your business, and it’s great to discuss.

Speak to you soon.

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 6pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.