Brand positioning misalignment

Strong brand positioning can have a significant impact on the long term success of your business. Getting it right can be hard, but it’s also crucial. Recognising and dealing with your brand going out of alignment is part of this process.

There is a common misconception in business that your company brand is a constant. Somehow it stays alongside your business evolution, keeping pace with the growth and changes in focus and delivery. The reality is that over time most B2B brands become seriously misaligned. You just don’t notice until you step back and have a good hard look. The most obvious place to look is at your website.

Very few businesses stand still, so it follows that while your business is changing your brand is not. You cannot allow this to carry on too long without review.

When you do something about your brand positioning misalignment the main objective is to drive brand re-appraisal and reposition your brand with a clear linkage to your company goals. Context is everything. This is not a task for the marketing team to conduct separately, it has to be in clear reference to the business development and goals.

From a brand communications perspective a new positioning strategy needs to be focused on relevant themes, brand story and key messaging. What matters to you now and how you want to be perceived by your audience. It is highly likely that this element of your branding is not focused where it should, probably fits where your business was several years ago. If there is work needed on your brand identity and style this can be added into the mix. However, don’t be in a rush to make significant creative changes. For example, your brand name, logo design and colour palette may not need changing. If the assessment says that your visual identity needs updating you need to be clear that it fits the new brand strategy and not the other way around.

Once the misalignment issues are clearly defined and the changes to bring your brand positioning back in line are identified, then you will have a new direction for your brand marketing activity to communicate to your team, key clients and your primary market audiences. This should be a very positive process that gives focus to your brand. The biggest priority is that your brand changes make sense and are clearly communicated. You want to avoid the ‘so what’ response.

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