What does the market actually believe?
Most brands know what their positioning is. Very few can describe what the market actually associates with them.
When performance falls short, that’s usually where the problem sits.
Positioning is the claim. Associations are what makes people believe it.
What I mean by this is that your positioning is the direction you've chosen, but associations are what the market picks up over time that either backs it up or doesn't. One lives in your strategy deck. The other lives in the mind of your buyer.
A premium brand needs people to feel the quality. A trusted brand needs to earn that trust at every touchpoint. A growth-focused brand needs to actually look like it knows what it's doing.
Campaigns build that over time. Without them, positioning is just words. With them, it starts to become a real preference in the market.
If performance feels harder than it should right now, it's probably not a targeting problem. It's more likely that the belief required to convert just isn't there yet.
Before you increase your budget, ask yourself honestly: are your campaigns building the associations your positioning actually needs?
Want this in your inbox?
This is taken from the weekly email written by one of our directors, Roberto Boi. Every Thursday he shares observations, ideas and perspectives from the work we’re doing day to day at Dilate. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up here.
