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BRAND POSITIONING
How To Tell Your Story
Michael Troiano
CMO, Actifio

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1. What is a brand?
2. Why emotion?
3. Reflect on your customer.
4. Simplify your promise.
5. Deliver it consistently.
AGENDA

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Where’s the brand in this picture?
WHERE’S THE BRAND?
?
?
The Brand is out here.
In the hearts and minds
of the audience.

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• The world’s collective emotional response
• Envelope for your product’s rational benefits
• Emotional value proposition, guides people toward or away
from what you’re selling
• If you think it doesn’t matter, you don’t understand how
people make decisions…
WHAT’S A BRAND?
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• Antonio Damasio, Neuroscientist
• Studied seemingly normal people with
a specific type of brain damage that
made them unable to feel emotions.
• All had something peculiar in common:
they couldn’t make decisions.
WE USE EMOTION TO DECIDE
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EVEN BIG DECISIONS
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WE SIMPLIFY THE WORLD
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badasssuccess cool racist rapist

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WE GO DEEPER OVER TIME
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*
15
seconds
15
minutes
*

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BUT EMOTION COMES FIRST
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emotional
rational

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If you want to change what someone does,
you need to change what they feel,
and not just what they think.
HUMAN TRUTH

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• Disclose the recipe.
• Destroy the factories.
• Fire the team.
• Rip up the contracts.
• Burn every hard asset of the Coca-Cola Company.
BRAND VALUE IS REAL
• BORROW $79.2 BILLION AGAINST THE VALUE
OF THE BRAND, REBUILD IT ALL.

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SO IS BRAND FAILURE
1
If you don’t create a brand
for the market, the market
creates a brand for you.
DOUCHEBAG

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It starts at the top. The failure to apply the right
level of executive leadership to define and deliver
on an emotional value proposition is the first
place brands fail.
BRAND FAILURE POINT

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“OK. SO WHAT DO I DO?”
REFLECT ON
YOUR CUSTOMER
SIMPLIFY YOUR
PROMISE
DELIVER IT
CONSISTENTLY

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NOT A PERSONA. A PERSON.
PERSONA PERSON

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1. Who is she?
2. What does she care about?
3. What does she really want?
4. Why does she want that?
5. How does she feel when she gets it?
QUESTIONS

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• Business traveler unhappy to be away from home.
• Moms who feel bad about getting groceries delivered.
• Technicians who feel undervalued and under-appreciated.
• Bosses sick of paying for storage.
• Teens with stage 5 FOMO.
Examples

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“OK. SO WHAT DO I DO?”
REFLECT ON
YOUR CUSTOMER
SIMPLIFY YOUR
PROMISE
DELIVER IT
CONSISTENTLY

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WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
What is the
R AT I ON A L
reason I should
care about this?
What is the
E M OT I ON A L
reason I should
care about this?

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1. Brainstorm a bunch of ideas with some smart and creative people.
2. Pick one that seems right based on the criteria above.
3. See how a few customers respond to your hypothesis.
4. Refine, confirm, and anoint the imperfect.
5. Focus on it, explicitly and exclusively.
ACTION PLAN
Express your choice clearly and simply,
as something you and everyone on your team can remember, share,
and deliver in the details of every customer touch point.

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• Enjoying the road a little more.
• Confidence of delivering the best to your family.
• Recognition of solving a real business problem.
• Freedom from the hassle and expense of 20th century tech.
• Joy of feeling you’re a part of the group.
Examples

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“Stain-Fighting Power”

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Not deciding on a single, simple brand promise
that is true, relevant, motivating, and distinct from
those chosen by your competition.
BRAND FAILURE POINT

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“OK. SO WHAT DO I DO?”
REFLECT ON
YOUR CUSTOMER
SIMPLIFY YOUR
PROMISE
DELIVER IT
CONSISTENTLY

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CONSISTENCY BEGETS LIKING
=
=
✗
✔

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REPETITION BREAKS THROUGH

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HOW IT WORKS

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HOW IT WORKS
“Being on the road sucks… I
feel and look like shit, I really
need to get my act together.”
Affluent, middle-aged
business traveler

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WESTIN “BE WELL” PROGRAM
“Play
Well”
“Work
Well”
“Feel
Well”
“Sleep
Well”
“Eat
Well”
“Move
Well”

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Lack of communications disciplinein the
delivery of the same brand promise at every
point of contact with the customer.
BRAND FAILURE POINT

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• If your product sucks, your brand will not save you.
• Brands live on the emotional plane of customer experience.
• Built on foundation of executive leadership, customer
understanding, insight on potential to add emotional value,
and product quality.
GROUNDING IN SUBSTANCE

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1. Your brand is out there, in the hearts and minds of the people you care about.
2. It works on the emotional plane that drives behavior in all people.
3. Your brand is grounded in the substance of your product, insight, and leadership.
4. Pretend your target audience is a person. Talk to them like they are.
5. Engage them with a clear and simple expression of your emotional value proposition.
6. Deliver that message, consistently and relentlessly, at every touch point with the market.
HIGHLIGHTS

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"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood
and don’t assignthem tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for
the endless immensity of the sea.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
FINAL THOUGHT

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THANK YOU.
Michael Troiano・CMO, Actifio
@miketrap