Good to Great

Superpositioning creates a single concept that can reside in the mind of the buyer. It's the core theme that can be reinforced over and over again, and in doing so, create mental territory that's distinct and ownable. Without owning mental territory in the mind of the buyer, it become very difficult for a potential buyer to remember that thing. It becomes harder for them to understand why they might need it, too. Both create friction, making it harder to buy. A world full of poorly positioned brands isn't exciting for businesses or their customers. It's like being an NPC. A lack of superpositioning leads to not being known for any particular thing. No business is successful if that's lacking.

Questions to answer:

1. Why does a business need a brand-level narrative in the first place?
2. What purpose does a brand narrative solve?
3. If a brand narrative is a "meta-categorical" narrative, then what, if any, relationship should it have with category strategy and strategic narratives?
4. What role should a brand narrative play in guiding the business itself? Or should it simply be treated as a marketing exercise?
5. What relationship does the brand narrative have with mission, vision, and values?
6. How might one go about constructing a brand narrative and messaging in the first place?

OK, let's start to unpack this.

We've already covered some of these questions. In terms of why a business would need a brand-level narrative, it's because it believes that (a) there is an advantage to connecting with buyers on an emotional- or values-level, and (b) it needs a connection layer that sits above the products themselves. In other words, a brand narrative might come into play (along with a strategic narrative around the product) in situations where emotions or values can play a meaningful role in the buying process and perhaps even serve as a core differentiator, and/or in situations where a brand has multiple products and it wants to connect with buyers at a deeper level than having a relationship with a product alone.

Examples to illustrate this thinking:

• Nike would be the platonic ideal of this. Customers buy multiple products across multiple categories and Nike needs a way to connect with them above the categorical level. Product-only level narratives or messaging are both impractical from an execution standpoint and would be overwhelming to buyers.
• Rolex sells products within a single product category. While customers might buy multiple watches, they don't need a message to extend across categories. However, the brand is a big part of the reason why someone would be a Rolex in the first place; it's a core "lever of differentiation" that sets its category of watches apart.
  • In a related note, Nike might have sub-narratives for specific sports or product categories, but they would need to be perceived as extensions of the core brand narrative. Rolex, similarly, might run product-specific ad campaigns, and they would need to tie back to the core brand narrative as well.
• A technology company like Q-PAC, provides a third scenario. Q-PAC's fans technically solve problems that other fans do not, and the product level strategic narrative makes a case for this. So, theoretically, Q-PAC could evangelize its product narrative and have little to offer in terms of a brand narrative. And it could probably do fine with that approach, at least for a while. But Q-PAC could also level up by connecting with buyers on a emotions or values, and doing so would level up their ability to sell. It would be like adding another power to their marketing abilities.
• Many technology companies, especially those that are pushing the bounds of existing categories, likely fall into Q-PAC's situation.

So we've established that there are some situations where a brand narrative is crucial, either because the product mix is broad and/or because the brand itself is a core differentiator and a big reason that people buy. We've also established that there are other situations where a brand narrative could be deployed to level up a business's ability to connect with buyers. These situations are likely matters of degree; some businesses may need to rely lightly on a brand narrative (perhaps for employer branding) while others may need to invest heavily.

The takeaway from this analysis is that brand and product narratives, and the supporting material that surrounds them, can be mixed and matched, altered and customized, to suit the situation that the business finds itself in. There is no single framework that works for all situations, but we can develop prototypes (or archetypes?) that can be modified as needed.

Here is some supplemental material from ChatGPT on archetypes

How should the brand narrative and the strategic narrative work with each other, then? Does one need to come first, or does it matter? Technically, you should be able to address them in either order... I think. But they can't be done in isolation, either.

In the product level strategic narrative, we essentially make the case for why a problem should be solved, and what the solution to address it should look like. We only say a little bit about the brand behind it, and we do little to speak to the role the brand plays in solving the problem as it relates to the buyer (the archetype the brand plays). We might speak indirectly to brand tenets and beliefs about the world, but none of this is addressed directly. The current way I approach product narrative is from a categorical perspective (why does this category need to exist, even if its a category of one).

On the other side of the equation, the brand narrative does less to speak about the problem set; it has more to do with how this particular business will go about solving the problem (or a problem set) and how it will relate to buyers in the process. This is where emotions, values, and archetypes come into play. Theoretically, you could have two businesses with very similar product-level strategic narratives, but very different brand narratives, because they chose to relate to their buyers in different ways, in pursuit of the same problem. This is almost certainly never to happen, but it's interesting to note that it could happen without impacting the integrity of this approach.

A simple way of thinking about this, then, is that a product level strategic narrative makes the logical case for what the problem is, why it needs to be solved, and how. It helps align the executive team on the job they are going to pursue (their aim) while giving the market the story that helps them see the problem in the right light.

The brand narrative make the emotional case for why this business in particular is best suited to solve the problem for you. It is related to Simon Sinek's case for "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." It gives buyers a way to connect with a brand that supersedes the logical case for the problem. It helps buyers see the intangible value that exists when they do business with the brand.

BMW is probably a good example of where both are used. BMW's products are a response to the problem that most cars aren't made for the driving experience. You might say that are made merely for transportation or merely for show. But BWM believes that a poor driving experience should be rectified, and that it should be done so through design decisions like a 50/50 weight distribution, direct (heavy) steering, engines that don't complain at high revs, supportive seats, and the availability of manual transmissions. All this makes a good logical case for what a good driving experience looks like. But BMW also uses brand narrative well. They are what... the hero.

One aside... the problem set is key. A strategic narrative for a product would typically address a specific problem. A brand narrative may extend to a set of problems that could be all effectively addressed with the same brand, with the same set of emotions and values conveyed by that brand. But a brand and a brand narrative could get into trouble if it tried to stretch itself beyond that problem set. This is why Porsche and BMW can extend their product lines into SUVs, but they have to be careful if there were to encroach into territories where the need for an ultimate driving machine was not a problem. So part of what we have to define with a brand narrative is the problem set that is being addressed.

So, we've established that the brand narrative needs to:

• Encompass a problem set (in the case of a brand with multiple problems)
• Support the category strategy of the underlying products
• Define the emotions, beliefs, and values in which it will connect with buyers
• Define the archetypes that will convey these emotions and values
• Show buyers why the brand exists
• Convey unique characteristics that give the brand its identity
• Provide the proper foundation for visual identity, verbal identity, stories and content

There's one last question I have to address before moving on to the approach for building the brand narrative: how does the brand narrative relate to a business's mission, vision, and values? Which one informs the other, and why?

Well, the mission, vision and values are somewhat timeless. They are essentially the charter for the business to exist in the first place. Mine was something like "To help great ideas succeed." The problem with these exercises is that they are so often pursued poorly, and result in throwaway statements like "To provide excellent customer service while delivering outstanding shareholder value." They don't provide any further clarification about how the business should conduct itself or where it should head. They are statements that could be used by too many other businesses and aren't all that helpful. Provided that they are done correctly, though, they transcend both the brand narrative and the strategic narrative for the product. The strategic narratives are essentially a plan for how a specific product is going to claim and defend market territory, and the brand narrative is essentially a description for how that brand will relate directly to buyers. Neither one addresses why the company itself exists, or speaks to underlying goals that could span multiple chapters of the business. A strategic narrative for a product is good for a chapter (but it must evolve once the category dynamics change); a brand narrative might be good for a chapter or a couple of chapters, but it too may need to evolve if its relationship to its customers needs to change. Mission, vision, and values may change the least often. And while the narratives connect business strategy, product, and marketing, the mission, vision, and values encompass the whole company. So we need to be mindful of mission, vision and values, and maybe even evaluate if a client needs to have their shored up, but ultimately we shouldn't need to revisit them. We only need to be aware of them so that we can ensure that the other narratives are extensions of them and that the organization is equipped to deliver them (e.g. we don't want to create a brand narrative that involved being the Hero if the values of the company are to be humble, for example.)

Now, on to the process of creating a framework for building a brand narrative...

This is a prototype, which I expect to refine over time.

To start, I would want to understand from the client why we think a brand narrative is a necessity. What is the desired outcome of this work and how will we know if it is successful? We should address opportunities like the need to differentiate, the need to connect with buyers on a deeper level, as a way to connect buyers with one offering to another, to create unity among them. This discovery work also needs to include a discussion about how the brand will show up (on its own, or always in conjunction with a product), who needs to be involved in the work, and where this work may have fallen short in the past.

Next, I would want to understand if the company's leadership feels confident in the company's mission, vision and values. Do they feel like they are defined in such a way that we can build off of them? Do they say enough about what the company is trying to achieve?

(somewhere we need a map of the narratives and positioning documents that the client will use, sort of like a map of what we think the ideal set of comms is. This can be build off a prototype and then modified to suit the situation at hand.)

From there, I think we could explore the problem set that the brand is trying to address across all of its products. If doing the strategic narrative work first, the problem identified in that narrative would be a specific example of a larger, meta problem. We should define this early on to make sure that the brand sets good boundaries for future products that are built.

Duplicating gets you the visual shell and styling for free — the callout box treatment, the divider lines, your custom classes, the overall spacing rhythm — which is real time saved. But because Canon's content structure genuinely diverges from Methodology's (different fields, an extra "Claim vs. Mechanics" split, no Applied Example/Application Guidelines, an extra Author/Source Author distinction), expect this to be closer to "rebuild the bindings and a few sections" than "change one setting and you're done." Want to go through this section by section — starting with whether your Webflow version supports directly re-pointing the duplicated page's Collection, since that determines which path you're actually on?

• Collins, Jim, et. al. Good to Great, 2016.
• Collins, Jim, et. al. Good to Great, 2016
• Collins, Jim, et. al. Good to Great, 2016

• Explore 'The Innovator's Solution' for insights on sustaining innovation.
• Explore 'The Innovator's Solution' for insights on sustaining innovationn
• Explore 'The Innovator's Solution' for insights on sustaining innovation.