Many people entering the business world believe that clients would follow if they simply build their business. But that isn’t the case because anyone who has ever launched a successful business knows that if you build it but don’t properly brand it, no one will come.
If you want to get off to a strong start in the market, you must carefully apply certain brand positioning principles that’d make your business appealing to its target market.
Brand positioning only works when done right, so to help you, we conducted a survey that’d set entrepreneurs on the right path to successfully understanding and positioning their businesses.
We tested different brand positioning principles to evaluate how people react to companies that adopt a modern vs. traditional position.
Why Was This Survey Required?
The purpose of this study was to find out which brands customers were drawn to and how this changed depending on their demographics.
The data we gathered will help business owners, whether they run small, medium, or large companies, make quick, data-driven branding decisions that will position their company for success.
So, in order to fulfill the survey’s goals, we asked people in the United States a key question: “Would you prefer to work with a new, innovative business or a historied, trustworthy organization?”
Why Did We Ask This Question?
The answer to that is tone. It’s vital to realize that choosing your company’s tone is one of the most important and defining branding decisions you’ll make when beginning or rebranding your business.
Choosing the right tone is essential because it helps entrepreneurs, product managers, and brand executives to shape their companies.
Imagine how the market today would look if:
- Steve Jobs had named his company Executex and not Apple
- Zappos was still known as Shoestore
- Jeff Bezos had not renamed Cadabra to Amazon
- Phil Knight’s hadn’t rebranded Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike
- Ayds diet candy had rebranded itself before the emergence of the AIDS virus
- The Loose brothers had picked a name that was more attractive than Hydrox
The tone of your brand has an impact on both the overall personality of your company and the perception people have of it. The tone of your business is so vital to its branding that you can’t afford to ignore it when establishing a naming strategy.
Although they’re several tones out there, most of them lie somewhere between these two extremes: “historied and trusted” or “modern and innovative.”
Here are a few examples of well-known historied brands:
- Liberty Mutual
- IBM
- Gucci
Here are some examples of modern and innovative brands:
- Slack
- Urban Decay
- Apple
Courtesy: Squadhelp.com
Our survey focuses primarily on determining which audience demographics are drawn to modern companies and which are drawn to traditional brands. We did this because selecting whether to go modern or traditional is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs make when creating their brand’s identity.
What We Discovered from the Survey
Despite the fact that the survey’s findings were quite predictable, the results we received were surprising and refreshing.
Here’s a rundown of what we learned from the 301 people we surveyed:
- People aged 25 to 34 are attracted to new and innovative companies. More than half of those we surveyed preferred modern brands over trusted ones.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- People aged 45–54 and 55–65 preferred historied and trusted brands over new and innovative ones.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- People aged 55 to 65 were especially drawn to trustworthy businesses.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- The results we gathered showed that men have little to no preference for either modern or historied brands.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Women, on the other hand, prefer traditional brands over new ones.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Among the 301 people we surveyed, 153 preferred traditional brands, while 148 preferred new and innovative businesses. From the survey, it’s clear that your business can take any position that best aligns with your target customers.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
What Does It All Mean for You?
According to the results of the study, the majority of young people are interested in companies that are fresh, modern, creative, and inventive. So, if you want to appeal to a younger generation, make your business stand out by having a distinct, new, and refreshing identity.
However, if your target consumers are Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers, it’s best to develop a historied and trusted brand identity. Customers between the ages of 45 and 65 are more inclined to buy from a traditional and trusted brand, so ensure that your company emits a classic, conventional, and trustworthy image.
The survey also shows that if entrepreneurs want to position their brand effectively, they must focus on their customers, products, and brand tone.
The best way to integrate your product, audience, and business is to get a strong brand name, and one of the simplest ways to do that is by using a powerful business name generator.
Here’s a Real-World Example of a Well-Positioned Brand
Lululemon distinguishes itself by being more than a sportswear brand. They’ve been offering brand engagement through courses for years, and their latest collaboration with Mirror, a home interactive boutique fitness studio, demonstrates that the company’s spirit of innovation is still alive and well two decades after Chip Wilson, the company’s founder, set the tone.