Who Wants Cake? Brand Positioning 101

How to make sure your brand is positioned in the best possible way

Imagine you are a baker. Close your eyes and conjure a chocolate cake with frosting. It’s the most delicious cake you could have ever made. Now imagine you are holding that cake in your hand and decide that you are going to hand it over to the first guy you see on the road. He is a complete stranger. Let’s call him Mr. X. You spot Mr. X, walk over to him, hand him your cake and ask them to describe it to you.

He might say it’s light, heavy, creamy or square. Maybe it’s dark or white in colour. Or he may say it reminds them of something from their childhood. You see their eyes light up in wonder, and he tells you all about how their mom used to love baking cakes for all family birthdays.

He loves the old-school, vintage piping and how their siblings used to sneak in and fight over who got the biggest slice. They point out the way you piped it, and the colours you used are very traditional, and they loved it! Reminded them of the 70s when they grew up.

Image generated by Nano Banana

Mr. X is quickly transported to another world; he starts reminiscing with a smile on his face and gets very nostalgic. All before even tasting the cake!

You say that’s wonderful, and you want to know more about their childhood. So you both sit in a park and talk about the little town he grew up in. The town that grew the best oranges in the entire country. You exchange numbers, and he promises to bring you back some oranges on his next trip. You give him a handwritten note with your bakery details, hug it out and go your merry way.

Mr. X goes home, tastes the cake, and it tastes exactly as he hoped it would! He decides that for his family reunion picnic next month, he will ask you to bake this exact cake in a bigger size. And he will also bring a mini loaf from your bakery for his neighbour’s housewarming party this Saturday.

Now imagine another version of this story. While you and Mr. X are going down memory lane, someone else comes along with a chocolate cake of their own. Let’s call this person Miss Y. Miss Y hands over her chocolate cake to Mr. X, who now has two chocolate cakes in his hand.

Miss Y, your competitor, also wants to know how Mr. X feels about her cake. Mr. X describes the product in his hand and starts talking about how refined it looks. How precise and modern the design is. It looks different from yours obviously, but you know it has the same ingredients, recipe and took the same amount of time. Mr. X hands the cake back to the buttoned-up competitor. She is friendly, polite, but not personal.

Their conversations are limited to small talk, albeit polite and genuine.

Mr. X says, “I don’t think it’s for me. It looks and smells beautiful, but it’s too fancy. I don’t know if I want to spend this much money right now. Maybe I will gift it to someone for their milestone birthday.” He clearly looks uncomfortable. All this without discussing the price even once!

This is how consumer perception starts to build. A story about your brand has been built before you even say who you are. And you guessed it- the consumer will decide who you are. They will decide who they want you to be for them. Mr. X thinks you are Comfortable, Nostalgic and Family-friendly whereas he thinks Miss Y is out of his league and definitely Luxurious.

He has differentiated the experience with you and compartmentalized it from his experience with Miss Y. The two compartments will seldom overlap.

Now think of a different scenario - When you were baking the cake, you were not thinking about your childhood. In your head, you were using organic ginduaja chocolate with gluten-free, healthy flour, and hand-churned butter. You were thinking of the farmers and decided to decorate the cake as it was meant to be, with classic piping techniques. You wanted Mr. X to remark on the purity of the chocolate and the vanilla beans. You wanted to transport him to the French countryside- errr whoops!

This poses a couple of questions.

Q1. Should you change your product and narrative to meet customer perception or look for the right target customer? There is no right answer to this. Sounds cliché, but it comes back to a few important points: Vision and goal of the business, the size of the business. Personal values of the founder/leadership team. This holds especially true for design brands, where often you either have it or you don’t. By that I mean you are either Miss Y or you’re not. Are you a Hermès, a Celine or a Louis Vuitton? All premium but not necessarily luxury. Or luxury for one and utilitarian for another.

Q2. Does brand positioning belong only to the marketing team? Should the marketer take an expensive product made with expensive ingredients and brand it as an accessible product? Is that fiscally responsible and the best use of company money? Probably not. Creating a positioning statement is one thing; communicating it is a different ballgame.

So, what is the best way to know which positioning will work best for your brand?

Start here..

1. Embed testing in your launch campaigns.

A product launch should typically last 1-2 years. Take the first 12 months to test relentlessly, everything from communication messaging, colours, logos, to distribution channels. Take the next twelve to fine-tune the ones that work. Test relentlessly. You can strategize till the cows come home, but till you put your message out there, you will not know. Gut and intuition are great starting points and should not be underestimated, but guesswork will not always work.

2. Talk to customers.

And really listen to what they are trying to say. Surveys, social listening, search results, campaign data, comments, and consumer forums are all amazing resources. Observe trends and data without getting defensive or getting overly attached to your initial idea. This is all a part of the process. Involve influencers and creators with varied interests and see whose audience reacts the best and turns into paying customers.

3. Close the gap between what you want your brand to be about and what your customers want from it.

Notice the value circles and words that often come up. For e.g.:

Nostalgia, Trust, and Family

Convenience, efficiency, and reliability

Fun, Young and Electric

Once you know the value space you want to play in, fully lean into it. Double down and own the energy of these values across your business. Communicate them consistently in every interaction your customer has with your business.

And next week will discuss how you should identify your Target Customer.

Till then, I’m going to go grab a slice of chocolate cake.

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