Strategic Ingredient Brand Positioning – Nobody understands me!
The challenge
Technically, my health-ingredient is second-to-none, but consumers don’t want to know about the science and B2B customers aren’t convinced it adds value”.
It’s incredible how often the owners of a great new technology are uncertain how to communicate the benefits of their ingredient.
At HMT we meet this challenge so often we have an off-the-shelf “Strategic Ingredient Positioning” process which can take you from a “pile of powder” to a clear sense of your value proposition, both B2B and B2C.
The HMT approach
If you want to know which way to go, it helps to know where you are!
The secret lies in building a strategic roadmap of the category:
Consumer: Since “the value chain starts in the mind of the consumer”, we always start by understanding consumers’ relationship with the benefit area and ingredient.
Even on tight budget and timescale we’ll find a way to give the consumer a voice; either through voxpops, interviews or informal co-creation sessions.
Competition: Next we’ll look around the world at competitors and examples of brands with similar benefits and similar challenges. The HMT have experience of every different type of health proposition so we can mine our own knowledgebase for relevant success and failure examples.
In both consumer and competition we’ll focus on the trends which drive change in the category, to be sure to make a position for the future – helping us to build a map of the category so we can then overlay:
Competencies: This is where we work with you (usually in a 1.5 day workshop) to uncover the unique properties, story and values of your ingredient – linking your competencies to the different stakeholders in our model of the “Innovation Lifecycle”.
The Result
NOW we have built a picture of where you can play in your category.
How to play: Once we have established the different directions you can win, we’ll make strategic recommendations based on our experience and knowledge of the market, to bring the most value to your brand.
Finally we can work with you, or as a desk job, to bring to life our original consumer insights into fully illustrated branded concepts both for B2B and B2C applications of your brand. Plus a functional and emotional brand definition.
The end result is to make the value of an ingredient much more tangible to both potential investors and customers. And to give a single-minded sense of direction towards the consumer.
In effect, you’ll know who to approach to sell your ingredient, or indeed your company.