#ritson

[gilesmdavis]

You must focus all your marketing resources on only a couple of associations, attributes, category entry points or values. I truly don’t care what you call them. But what I do care about is how many you have packed into your brand strategy, because I am betting my salary against yours that you have too many. Most marketers have too much brand positioning. They have purpose. And values. And beliefs. And essence. Circles upon circles. Keyholes within rhomboids. And a host of other shapes and concepts that they use to pad out their positioning strategy and completely negate any possibility of getting this across to target consumers. They fail because they thought brand positioning was an end in itself – a book, a presentation, a pdf document. They fail because they have forgotten that positioning was always a means to something more important. A means to the end of consumer associations. They fail because in each of the concepts that crowd out most brand positioning there are too many fucking words jostling for attention. Their brand essence has four or five different sentences. Next to it is a set of values – usually innovation and integrity along with four or five more. There is a bland mission with a couple of sentences. A purpose about inspiring something. A brand personality with six traits. And as this word count goes up, and more and more shit is thrown against the customer wall, none of it sticks.

Copy KitKat on your quest for Double D Marketing

It’s why the name is “Sensible” branding.

[gilesmdavis]

How to get purpose right Having analysed the performance of 47 brand purpose cases, Field has identified four key areas where better execution of brand purpose can lead to strong effectiveness. “If you ignore [these four key observations], you may well end up doing more harm than good,” he says. The first is physical availability: strong cases work closely with distributors that are also aligned to the purpose, and develop bespoke in-store presence. Field points to Skittle’s ‘Give the Rainbow’ campaign, in which the brand replaced all of its products with all-grey packets in Tesco to celebrate LGBTQ+ pride. Strong purpose cases also align the brand’s purpose to the virtues or benefits of the product itself and ensure this is a credible link, Field says, as Waitrose effectively did when it launched its farming partnership. The grocer now executes a number of agricultural-focused initiatives, which it connects back to the quality of its product. Additionally, strong brand purpose cases will use purpose to strengthen the brand’s association with category entry points, as in the case of Ella’s Kitchen. The children’s food brand has made a major push into helping parents wean their babies and get them onto solid food, which builds “brownie points” among those parents when they continue looking for food for their young children as they get older. And finally, all strong purpose cases will align their brand’s purpose to popular issues among the target market. Field cites gravy brand Bisto as an example, with its mission to bring separated families, friends and loved ones together around food.

Criticism of brand purpose is 'naïve and unjustified', claims Peter Field

I think he’s putting Rotson on the naughty step.

[gilesmdavis]

Brand your branding like a brand

The seven things marketers need to know in order to answer The Question

More valuable Ritson

[gilesmdavis]

Want a job? Pretend you believe in ‘digital marketing’

You're a talented, out-of-work marketer but every job ad seems to buy into the worst digital claptrap, so what do you do? Pretend you do too.

Ritson is so good at getting his point across. 

[zachlieberman]

Much as it might threaten our collective ego to admit it, the truth is that marketing isn’t rocket science

A nice reminder to simplify, and stick to basic principles in this breakdown of the 9 core elements of an EFFective campaign by Mark Ritson.

[gilesmdavis]

How to market anything, to anyone

Use the STP framework to build a winning strategy for any brand in any category. Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) is often referred to as the “Holy Trinity of Marketing.

Very Sensible Ritson approach to strategy

[gilesmdavis]

(via Mark Ritson: Superdry's returning founder can restore the brand's DNA)

Another reliable corker from Mark Ritson on pros and cons of brand founders

[gilesmdavis]

Brand is ultimately about making enormous amounts of money that would, otherwise, be unachievable.

Mark Ritson: Mastercard’s wordless logo shows the power of distinctive brand codes – Marketing Week