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Subtlety doesn’t work when branding yourself
Posted under Personal Branding Strategies by Linda Griffin
“Two Scoops!” Those are the words that woke me up when I was supposed to be watching TV last night but was dozing on the sofa instead. If I told you the commercial was for a breakfast cereal, you’d probably guess pretty quickly that it was Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. On their web site they write:
“With so many raisin bran choices, what does one smiling sun offer that generations have loved? Why, Two Scoops® of delicious raisins, of course!”
You know immediately what distinguishes them from their competition. They’ve chosen to call out a feature of their cereal that makes them unique from all the other cereal brands and is almost impossible to challenge. Notice they don’t say they are the best tasting. Maybe they are, but that claim can be easily attacked by their competitors. They also don’t say that they’re the cheapest. They’re not interested in making a claim which could force them into a price war.
The other thing they do in these two simple sentences is to focus on the benefits of their brand to their customers. They’re letting customers know that they will provide not just a handful, but two big scoops and they reinforce that image right on the front of the box.
I challenge you to look at the marketing and advertising for your brand and see if they pass the tests of demonstrating an ‘obvious value’ to your customers and making it difficult for your competitors to challenge.