Our Blog: where do you stand?

What We're Reading: Brand Positioning

By: Maggie Brandt | 11/11/2011

As some chilly and rainy fall weather has hit us full force this week, we at Standing have enjoyed staying cozy indoors and reading about one of our favorite topics - brand positioning. Check out a few of our favorite links below.

Organizations develop visual branding so customers can instantly recognize the brand, right? As this Fast Company writer points out, more and more companies are "swimming in a sea of sameness," where their brand blends in with the rest of the industry instead of standing out. One South African discount airline, however, is determined to stand apart by openly displaying its creative and edgy personality. Instead of repeating the simple colors and images used by other airlines, Kulula Airways flies lime green jets and bids farewell to departing passengers with comments like, "the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of Kulula Airways." By having fun with its work, the airline created a brand that differentiates itself and creates a lasting impression on customers. Well done, Kulula!

So if your brand is the way you leave an impression in the market, what happens when your company is prohibited from displaying its brand on its own product? In Australia, the Senate has done just that by passing a law requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging without the maker's brand. In its place, the packages will display images of people suffering from smoking-related illnesses. We're interested to see how the tobacco companies fight what they are calling "an infringement of their intellectual property rights," and whether brand-less cigarettes will become a norm around the globe.

It sounds like tobacco companies in Australia are experiencing some brand hatred, a sentiment recently felt by Ticketmaster, dubbed in Fast Company as "the most hated brand in America." While criticisms of the company abound on Twitter and other social media outlets, CEO Nathan Hubbard welcomes the angry feedback as an opportunity to learn about customer concerns. Hopefully, Ticketmaster and other companies facing brand hatred use this feedback as a building block for improving their brands.

As any organizations that have undergone a branding (or rebranding) campaign can tell you, there are a lot of building blocks that create your brand. Often when we blog about brand positioning we look at the big-picture impact of a brand, but this Mashable post reminded us that even minor mechanics of our messages, like the font we choose, make a big impact on how people interpret our brand. This author explores basic elements of typography, reminding communicators everywhere that our messages are only impactful when they are easy to read and appropriate to your organization's brand personality.

What's the most interesting thing you've read this week?

Posted in Brand Positioning, What We're Reading