Why is your brand different? And why is it better? [part 2]

Once a brand finds out its competitive advantage that differentiates it from the others, to assure itself a certain visibility, to be memorable and lovable, a brand should work on another factor: the value added. Keep reading to know more about this.

To build up a strong brand and place it in a good position on the market, there are two very important factors to define and monitor, as well as defining its own universe of values to which to refer:

the competitive advantage: the unique element that makes the brand different from the others of the same kind
added values: all the positive aspects that can be related to the brand

All together with the brand values these factors compose the so called “brand promise”, a sort of message that should be able to guide the definition of the targets’ perceptions.

If resources and organizational capacities don’t have the characteristics required to become part of the competitive advantage, from them it is possible to obtain a value added, something that makes a brand good or even special, but not unique.

Values added, unlike competitive advantage, can be multiple: they are positive elements or characteristics that brands can use to place and increase their visibility in the market and “be lovable”. Other than be potentially multiple, they are not uniquely attributed to a specific brand, they can be shared by different products or services at the same time.

It’s clear that their singularity cannot make the difference in the market competition, but their positivity contributes to increase the reputation of the brand and to make the targets more inclined to prefer a certain product or service instead of another.

Then, competitive advantage and value added have to be represented into the universe of values expressed by the brand contributing to create a clear brand promise thanks to a system of values and referrals that has to be organic, coherent and trustworthy, other than close to the one of the target referred.

Failures in keeping the brand promise are failures that it is very very hard to fix: take it seriously! 😉