DESIGNING A BRAND MANTRA Unlike brand slogans meant to engage, brand mantras are designed with internal purposes in mind. Although Nike’s internal mantra was “authentic athletic performance,” its external slogan was “Just Do It.” Here are the three key criteria for a brand mantra. Communicate. A good brand mantra should clarify what is unique about

EMOTIONAL BRANDING Many marketing experts believe a brand positioning should have both rational and emotional components. In other words, it should contain points-of-difference and points-of-parity that appeal to both the head and the heart.

A person’s emotional response to a brand and its marketing will depend on many factors. An increasingly important one is the brand’s authenticity.29 Brands such as Hershey’s, Kraft, Crayola, Kellogg’s, and Johnson & Johnson that are seen as authentic and genuine can evoke trust, affection, and strong loyalty.

PERCEPTUAL MAPS For choosing specific benefits as POPs and PODs to position a brand, perceptual maps may be useful. Perceptual maps are visual representations of consumer perceptions and preferences. They provide quantitative pictures of market situations and the way consumers view different products, services, and brands along various dimensions.

Category points-of-parity are attributes or benefits that consumers view as essential to a legitimate and credible offering within a certain product or service category. In other words, they represent necessary—but not sufficient— conditions for brand choice.

Specifically, deciding on a positioning requires: (1) choosing a frame of reference by identifying the target market and relevant competition, (2) identifying the optimal points-of-parity and pointsof- difference brand associations given that frame of reference, and (3) creating a brand mantra summarizing the positioning and essence of the brand.

one common challenge in positioning is that many of the benefits that make up points-of-parity and points-of-difference are negatively correlated.

the brand substitution test. If, in some marketing activity—an ad campaign, a viral video, a new product introduction—the brand were replaced by a competitive brand, then that marketing activity should not work as well in the marketplace. A well-positioned brand should be distinctive in its meaning and execution.

All marketing strategy is built on segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP). A company discovers different needs and groups of consumers in the market place, targets those it can satisfy in a superior way, and then positions its offerings so the target market recognizes its distinctive offerings and images.