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November 08, 2017
Brand Advice That Will Help You Dominate Your Competition
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Andy Cunningham is the founder of Cunningham Collective, a marketing, brand and communication strategy firm. She's played a role in the launch of many technology categories and products, including the Apple Macintosh. Her new book is Get to Aha: Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate Your Competition. I recently interviewed Andy for the LEADx Podcast, where she showed the right way to think about brand marketing, and how to understand its very DNA. (The interview below has been lightly edited for space and clarity.) Kruse: What's the big idea behind your book? Cunningham: It's about a concept that was invented in the '70s called Ôpositioning.Õ Positioning is the art and science of owning real estate in the mind of the potential customer. A book was written in the '70s called Positioning by Jack Trout and Al Ries. They did this book prior to the Internet. Life was very different in that era, and doing positioning and doing marketing was very different. My book is what I kind of affectionately call ÔPositioning 2.0,Õ and it takes into consideration all that has occurred between the '70s and now on the concept of positioning in marketing. ThatÕs the big idea. Kruse: You talk about brand archetypes and the heroÕs journey. What do you mean by that? Cunningham: Carl Jung many years ago came up with this map that he created that he called personality archetypes. Marketing people have been stealing from Carl Jung for many years on this topic, and we are no different. He's got these 12 archetypes of human personalities. Again, because I treat companies like people, I ascribe the people archetypes to companies. We have hero, as you mentioned. We also have mavericks, we have jester, we have the common man. Companies, interestingly enough, do reflect those archetypes just like human beings. Once you understand what that is, you can put voice to those personalities just as you would a person and make the brand come alive much more realistically once you've got color and personality and voice and tone of voice added to what that archetype is. Kruse: When it comes to brand personality, do you pick it or is it just who you are? Cunningham: ThatÕs a great question. I think much of it is who you are, but at some point or another, you do have to come together as a management team and decide what you're going forward with. The problem that most companies have today is they don't do that. YouÕve got one person who thinks it's one personality, one who thinks it's another, another one who thinks it's something else. What you end up with is a mishmash. An important thing for marketing people to do is to make sure that the entire C-suite is aligned on what is the positioning statement, the brand archetype, and the brand personality so that all the marketing you do put forth into the market is authentic. First of all, it has to reflect who you are as a company, your DNA, but then also be aligned with each other, with all the other stuff that you do, because you can't have your recruiting material saying one thing and your marketing brochure saying something else and your website saying something else yet again. Kruse: You say there are three types of companies: Mothers, Mechanics, and Missionaries. Tell me more about that. Cunningham: I treat companies like people, because they are comprised of people. I think they have DNA just like people have DNA. DNA informs who you are and what your potential is. I feel companies are the same way. I've done hundreds of these types of engagements with companies and came to the conclusion after doing about a thousand of them that there are really only three kinds of companies in the world. There are customer-oriented companies, which I affectionately call Ômothers.Õ There are product-oriented companies, which I affectionately call Ômechanics.Õ There are concept-oriented companies, which I call Ômissionaries.Õ Within those three companies, your company will fall into one of those three categories. The reason you know this is because it's not just a label. It's actually how you manage the company, how you structure the company, how you hire people, how you fire people, how you measure success. Each one of these companies does it in a slightly different way. The mothers do it based on customers and customer relationships. The mechanics do it based on product. The missionaries do it based on concept or next big thing. Kevin Kruse is Founder of LEADx.org an online learning company that offers free world-class leadership training anytime, anywhere. Copyright 2017 Skift. All rights reserved. From https://www.forbes.com. By Kevin Kruse, Contributor.
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