Get Out of the Boring Middle Before It’s Too Late!
Should the advice “better safe than sorry” be universally applied in business? I consistently mention strategies that increase safety, such as financial buffering, stress testing your business model, and building operational resiliency, but what about brand positioning?
Brand Positioning = refers to the ability to influence consumer perception regarding a brand or product relative to competitors.
You want to appeal to the most consumers possible, right? What then is the safest brand positioning? Applying conventional wisdom, most entrepreneurs wrongfully believe it would be somewhere in the middle…
The Middle is Boring!
Having your brand positioned in the middle might have been an effective strategy to use in the past, but it rarely provides any opportunity today. Why? In today’s low barriers to entry CPG industry, brand proliferation has created a competitive landscape worse than any time in history. If a consumer looks at your brand and doesn’t instantly understand why they’re spending money with you over your countless competitors, you’re stuck in the vast undifferentiated middle…and in major trouble!
While this is a universal problem across the functional CPG categories (e.g. supplements), legacy brands are having a particularly tough time getting out of the boring middle. These legacy CPG brands were once competing with only a handful of others in the sea of sameness. When you operate within a relatively weak competitive landscape compared to now, even the boring middle provides enough opportunity. That’s not the reality now with 100x the competitors, and legacy brands are struggling to survive.
Be Bold Brands
It’s fairly obvious that most of the CPG brands that are in trouble right now failed to innovate. Just being good enough and incrementally improving is no longer an effective strategic gameplan to improve your situation. CPG brands really need to push harder on and amplify aspects of their value proposition. Winning in today’s environment takes an attitude of radicalism and a willingness to embrace experimentation and a sense of urgency.
Getting Out of the Middle
The biggest problem that I encounter when going through this strategic process with clients is that they try to dabble in a little of everything. This inevitably confuses the consumer market and puts your brand at risk for being in the boring middle. Even if your brand is positioned inside of the boring middle, it’s never too late to get out. As the saying goes…
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”
The journey of getting out of the middle has to begin somewhere, but where?
Product/Brand Differentiation
Economical = Yes, this isn’t the sexiest approach, but there’s something special about a CPG entrepreneur that unapologetically seeks to serve value-orientated consumers with a cost-effective product.
Targeted = Speak to one consumer cohort…no matter its size. Fragmentation is happening at speeds never seen before and today’s commerce/marketing tools give you the ability to reach them effectively.
Premium = It’s becoming increasingly tougher to identify and communicate the unique qualities of a brand or product compared to its competitors…yet massive opportunities lie ahead for those that can.
Outlandish = How do you cut through the noise of today’s market? A collection of consumers want the strongest, biggest, or whatever sensationalized product feature (or brand marketing), and social media virality can do the talking for you if you understand its power.
Technology/Operational Differentiation
Personalization = Can you give a customer a truly unique experience across some (or all) touchpoints?
Integration = Can you make the consumer’s life better by bringing together elements that create valuable network effects?
Disruption = If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got, right? Change the narrative and stand out.
Excellence = Believe it or not, most of the time executing your business strategy more consistently and reliably than the competition creates noticeable value within consumers.
Strategic Partnerships
CPG brands should also look to identify strategically relevant partners along the entire value chain that will help them not only improve sales but also deepen the ever-important customer connection. When done correctly, strategic partnerships provide opportunities to share expertise, brand reputation, resources, creative inspiration, and many other mutual benefits that can lead to immense value. While strategic partnerships likely will never go out of style as a viable differentiation lever to pull, it’s important to remember that they can also be dangerous if a clear internal foundation of “why” isn’t set.
Final Thoughts
Despite this trying economic environment, some CPG brands continue to thrive. These top-performing CPG brands work tirelessly to understand their core consumers. Additionally, they identify what those consumers want, where, when, why, and how they want it. Fact is, the CPG industry is bursting with growth opportunities for unique, compelling brands. While there’s endless ways to differentiate your brand, I’ll leave you with another of my common sayings…
“If you continue trying to appeal to everyone, you will end up appealing to no one…”