When planning a live event in Dubai or anywhere else in the world, whether it’s a product launch or a gala banquet, part of the event production company’s job is to assist marketers with various strategies. This includes building better brand positioning and recognition. Brand positioning is important to event branding and business success. Other marketing methods that can be tremendously successful and beneficial for those hosting these events include:
- Being established as a leader in their industry
- Heightened brand visibility
- Improving relationships with the community
- Growing sales and revenue
- Building customer loyalty
Brand Positioning versus Placement
For almost anyone who has seen some of today’s major motion pictures or watched a successful television series, you may have noticed the characters drinking a certain brand of beverage, shopping at a specific store, eating at a well-known chain restaurant and other seemingly normal activities. In the entertainment industry, this is known as brand (or product) placement and it’s rarely left to chance.
They’re often made clearly visible specifically to build brand awareness and there could be a payment made or incentives offered in exchange for this placement. When it comes to brand positioning, a simple definition states it’s “the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market.”
This meaning is expanded to include describing how the brand is different from its competitors and where or how it sits in the minds of consumers. Effective brand positioning strategies are directly linked to customer loyalty, consumer-based equity in the brand and a willingness to purchase. It’s also referred to as the extent to which a brand is being perceived as favourable, unique, credible and more trustworthy in the marketplace.
Beginnings of Brand Positioning
Before the beginning of an event, especially live events, you need to analyze ways to ensure brand positioning will be the most successful. This includes analyzing three important consumer concepts in learning and understanding:
- What customers want
- How competitors are positioning their brand
- The company and brand’s capabilities
Taking these first three steps will help to outline a statement or message for your event that will resonate with attendees, connect with them more effectively, is unique from the competition, and delivered by the company through this brand positioning. The next part of the process is reflecting this positioning in every part of your brand’s personality including logo design in its packaging, products, and services. This will ring through inside the brand’s voice through communications and its overall identity.
Avoid and Embrace
It’s recommended companies use short, punchy taglines and consumer-friendly terms to briefly describe their brand and its voice. However, when crafting this message, avoid overly-used statements that already saturate the marketplace and are the aim of most existing products or services.
For example, let’s say a brand is selling a line of vegan products targeted primarily towards older women. Instead of making a blanket statement or using more familiar terminology commonly seen on these items like “all-natural, high-quality ingredients,” instead aim for a more targeted voice.
Try using words like “traditionally-healthy” or “female-friendly” that are not only more unique, they will connect better with a more seasoned women’s audience. It’s likely consumers already know the brand is vegetarian and therefore the ingredients are natural and of better quality. There’s no need to dumb-down consumers with stale, outdated taglines and common claims when brand positioning.
A High-Tailing Example of Brand Positioning
Let’s look at a real-world example of successful brand positioning in the wine industry with a formerly unknown Australian label. The Casella family immigrated to New South Wales from Sicily in 1957, bought vineyards in 1965 and opened their namesake winery in 1969. In 2001, the family decided to launch its new “Yellow Tail” brand and begin globally positioning in an already overcrowded marketplace in the United States, Japan and other parts of the world.
Since the Casella family didn’t have the same reputation as vineyards in Europe, they decided they couldn’t pretend to target the same market of fine wine connoisseurs. Instead of trying to compete with French or Italian wines whose brands were built on the prestige of their vineyards, the quality, and complexity of their products, they took a simpler approach by targeting a new type of wine consumer.
A Successful Case Study
In a successful brand positioning battle, the family from Sicily marketed their Yellow Tail wine as being fun and approachable rather than award-winning and world-renowned. It was a huge gamble at the time but the risk paid off for the small, relatively unknown Casella clan. Hoping to sell 25,000 cases globally, their clever brand positioning efforts led to the sales of nine times that amount in a recent case study.
By the beginning of 2006, Yellow Tail’s cumulative sales were tracking at 25 million cases and emerged as the overall best selling red wine in a 750ml bottle. The Casellas were outselling many popular Californian, French and Italian brands. It became the number one imported wine in the US and the fastest-growing brand in the history of the American and Australian wine industries.
Past Black-and-White with Red versus Blue
This method of brand positioning is now known as The Blue Market Strategy coming from a book by the same name. This approach suggests “cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool.” Better brand positioning looks for new market space by avoiding head-to-head competition by focusing on innovation instead.
In the case of a live event supporting a brand like Yellow Tail, rather than a more traditional tasting experience involving the five S strategy (see, swirl, smell, sip and swallow), attendees would enjoy a more laid-back atmosphere. The black ties and white shirts would be replaced by more casual attire and the focus would be pointed more on the fun.
In Closing
While there are plenty of instances when more traditional venues and approaches are more appropriate when it comes to brand positioning. However, sometimes it’s better to think outside the box or swim in another ocean when it comes to this type of marketing.
For more ways of successfully building your brand during live events, please contact us today. As experts in this industry, we’re here to make sure your brand will shine brightly alongside the rest of the competition. Our success is your success and we’re looking forward to hearing from you.
