Developing your brand essence and positioning

Find what is truly unique about your sustainable brand, discover your positioning space in the competitive branding landscape and write your brand manifesto.

Why?

Defining your brand essence and positioning is important for your sustainable business because it helps you visualize who you are, what you stand for and what sets you apart from the competition.

You should do this in a strategic manner, to be able to communicate clearly to your audiences and help them choose your sustainable value proposition over another one.

What?

Work on your sustainable brand positioning, by assessing your brand’s competitive landscape and analyzing your branding SWOT, as well as by finding and unleashing what is unique about you and sets you apart from the competition (your brand essence). Once you have defined it, you will be able to write your brand manifesto!

Key Learnings

By now, you should know how to (1) assess your sustainable brand’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the main threats and opportunities regarding your competition, (2) position your sustainable brand in the competitive landscape and find your unique branding niche, and (3) unleash your uniqueness and express it in your sustainable brand manifesto.

Positioning your sustainable brand properly is very important, since a well-positioned brand creates emotional connection with your audiences while addressing what it is unique about you (brand essence). Your brand positioning should highlight something that your venture is uniquely suited to deliver; it is important to your audiences, it and provides something your competitors are not adequately addressing it.

Define your sustainable branding strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT)

This exercise will help you identify the key elements that distinguish your brand from your competitors. It also will help you spot any gaps and weaknesses, for an opportunity to address your improvement areas. For instance, you may be at a disadvantage if all your competitors have a social media presence and a solid, engaging web site and you don’t.

Understand

Think about who your key competitors are. They don’t necessarily have to be sustainable businesses, but make sure they share the same market space. When answering the prompts, consider the positioning and branding of the main players in your market space.

It is recommended that you review the business SWOT from section 2.2.2 of the Methodology for Green Business Model Development (or revisit, if you’ve already worked with the methodology) to see how branding is a reflection of the challenges your venture will face.

Steps

Reflect on the following:

STRENGTHS
Identify the main advantages that would help make your sustainable business/marketing goal a reality, like unique, useful differentiators (green or social features, or a unique sustainable value proposition) as well as key resources (people, time) that will help enhance your sustainable brand.
WEAKNESSES
Weaknesses are what your brand is missing (a professional logo, a clear sustainable slogan, high-quality materials, etc.) or your “pain points”, the things that are not going well at the moment which might be weakening your sustainable brand.
OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunities could be content, materials, or sustainability stories your competition is not publishing or sharing, but also new trends you could caplitalize on (a rise in consumer awareness, or a millennial affinity for green brands).
THREATS
It is important to identify which market conditions (strong competition) or target audience issues (low brand awareness) could prevent us from having a strong sustainable brand and a distinctive presence.

Download the template

Find your Sustainable Brand Space and Positioning

Your sustainable branding SWOT reveals what really sets you apart from the competition: you have identified who your real competitors are, within your branding niche. You’ll now identify what criteria your audience would use in choosing your brand over another, although you will still need to carve out your unique branding space and highlight what really makes you stand out from the crowd.

Understand

Recall from the previous exercise that you have identified your brand strengths in a SWOT analysis. You should review these strengths with your team and think about what you believe really sets you apart, i.e., your two top brand strengths (e.g., organic product vs. natural product, sustainable vs. non sustainable, price vs. convenience).

Steps

Plot the top two brand strengths along the horizontal and vertical axes. The top of the vertical axis and the right end of the horizontal axis represent the maximum potential for each strength. So if one of your top brand strengths is that your product is organic, then write “100% organic product” at the top of the y axis or the far-right of the x axis
Position yourself in a quadrant. Ideally, you’d be in the top right-hand quadrant (shown below), but you may be a bit lower if you are still working towards fully achieving your brand strengths.
Your SWOT analysis has also identified your top brand competitors. Make a list of those and start positioning their name in a quadrant. Discuss with your team and make your decisions, according to how the other brands rank in your top two brand strengths.
Take a look at your brand within the quadrant now. Is your branding space really “crowded”? If yes, then reconsider what really sets you apart from the rest. Perhaps you need to revisit your top brand strengths and choose a different one, or perhaps you need to change your brand message.

This exercise will ultimately help you identify where your niche branding space exists, and where there is no branding differentiation and you cannot stand out. When you finish, you will have a clear understanding of the brand strengths that you can use in all your communications to position your sustainable brand.

Download the template

Your brand manifesto

Now that you understand your strengths and opportunities and where your branding positioning is, you can begin to articulate your brand manifesto and what is truly unique about you. By writing your brand statement and sharing it, you make your ambitions for a circular and sustainable economy tangible and actionable. Write up your manifesto and build your sustainable brand!

Understand

A manifesto should describe your sustainable objectives and your motivations, and it is important that you write the it together with your team or closest collaborators. Start linking your strengths with your unique positioning in order to brainstorm what your call to action should be. Use post-its and key words that represent your brand and build from there.

Steps

Start by brainstorming your key ideas and creating a mind map.
Select actionable issues that would make you stand out and write them down in half a page, one page maximum.
Share this internally and externally, with your team, friends and colleagues and get some feedback
Live your brand: tell the world why it’s important for you to exist and how people’s lives will improve.

Your brand manifesto is the ultimate expression of your organization’s purpose, so it’s crucial for the development of your brand essence (as we will see in the modules “Sustainable Brand Design Guide” and “Narrative and Key Messages”).

Download the template