“Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception.” — Ashley Friedlein.
Let’s face it: Branding is a tricky process that many entrepreneurs struggle with. And this aspect of business development is crucial in so many ways that it cannot be overstated.
Recall that moment when you bought a mediocre product just because you liked the ad, the logo, or even the sound of the brand’s name? Well, that’s only a tiny taste of what branding can accomplish.
The concept of branding is built on giving your business a voice and communicating your company’s personality to your audience.
And to generate the best result for your company, you need to have a deep understanding of how your branding can make or break your business. This way, you can get a clear idea of how your brand’s position affects the value your target audience places on your products and how that value can be the decisive factor in whether or not your company succeeds.
And to assist you in understanding brand positioning, we surveyed some brand positioning strategies to see how customers react to businesses with modern or classic positioning.
What is the Scope of This Research?
The focus of this research was to assess which businesses people are willing to patronize and how this differs by age range.
We know that the material we’ve gathered will help business owners who are organizing or rebranding their small, medium, or large corporations make rapid, educated business decisions. This knowledge would guide them on how to come up with a business name and establish their brand’s identity.
To meet the survey’s objectives, we asked Americans whether they preferred doing business with recognized everyday firms or new and unique ones.
Here’s Why This Survey is Necessary
It’s important to realize that setting a tone is one of the most critical decisions you’ll make when starting or rebranding your organization.
The appropriate tone is crucial for any business since it aids in the development of their brand identity as well as how others view them.
Consider how different the world would be if:
- Caleb Bradham had remained with ‘Brad’s drink’ instead of Pepsi.
- Phil Knight had not changed the name of his firm from Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike.
- Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo did not change its name to Sony.
- Larry and Sergey had stuck with Backrub instead of rebranding to Google.
Your brand tone has an impact on both the overall picture of your company and customer expectations. Your tone is critical for building your corporate identity, and you cannot afford to ignore it while beginning your business.
As we said earlier, the goal of our research was to find out which clients preferred modern firms over classic ones. And we chose to focus on this because determining whether to give their business a traditional or modern tone is among the most critical decisions a company must make.
What We’ve Learned About Positioning From This Research
Despite the reality that our conclusions were not exceptional, the comments we received were fascinating. Here’s a rundown of what we learned from 301 participants:
- Customers aged 20 through 30 were more inclined to patronize new and growing businesses than well-established ones.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Consumers between the ages of 35 and 45 choose new and growing brands over established ones. But this age range was rather open-minded and evenly split between the two options.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Consumers aged 45 through 54 are drawn to older and trusted businesses.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Individuals aged between 55 and 65 are drawn to reputable and trustworthy businesses.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Men, as per data we obtained, exhibited no preference for either modern or classic brands.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Women choose well-known and well-respected brands over newer models.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
- Amongst 301 respondents, 153 prioritized established businesses, whereas 148 selected new businesses.
Our research makes it clear that you can position your brand either as a modern or traditional business as long as it aligns with the needs of your target customers.
Courtesy: Squadhelp
Here’s How to Make the Best of Our Survey
The data we gathered shows that millennials love fresh, modern, innovative, and bold companies, whereas Boomers and Gen Xers prefer established and trusted businesses.
As a result, if you want to connect with a younger market, give your company a vivid, modern, and dynamic brand image; and if you want to connect with an older audience, make sure your company has a substantial traditional identity.
Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients such as Nestle, Dell, Nuskin, and AutoNation.
