The search for the underlying buying motives of consumers and the brand purpose.
WHY and HOW a brand becomes emotionally relevant: The inspiring LADDERING PROCESS.
True brand relevance must fulfill 2 CRITERIA:
👉 fulfill a relevant need so that we as humans can live (better) and be more successful
👉 this brand story must be told in a super simple way
The brand ladder exercise is a way to find and formulate these brand criteria.
On Monday, we climbed up the WHY ladder again, together with a medium-sized management team that runs a great brand with a long history and a lot of expertise.
The TECHNICAL reason and benefits of a brand are often simple and obvious. This is also usually where the company's CORE COMPETENCE lies: great recipes, exciting, functional benefits, competitive product performance. Everything is great.
👉 But others are also quite good in the market.
👉 And what really TRIGGERS the consumer?
They buy the products out of an EMOTIONAL NEED.
The product/brand should solve this personal issue, and this is often of an emotional nature.
Searching for and finding this emotional need and the underlying brand purpose is an exciting process.
With our LADDERING EXERCISE, we ask for the WHY and the emotional relevance for the customer until we have arrived.
This opens up completely new perspectives, even if customers have supposedly already thought everything through.
On Monday, Katja Wagner and I led a brand strategy workshop.
We used different tools throughout the day, but after the LEITER we reached a turning point in our thinking... and a new world emerged for the BRAND STRATEGY.
And when the customer is open, warm-hearted and funny (you can tell from the picture, can't you?), the day is particularly enjoyable and everyone leaves the room inspired and with new and relevant ideas and targeted to-dos.
Have you ever tried the LADDER exercise?
What other tools do you know for the WHY?
LinkedIn Post: 07.03.2024 by Christina Rüter