How can you increase brand awareness without diluting your brand differentiation?

Why should your efforts to increase brand awareness dilute your brand differentiation? It doesn't have to be that way. As a brand custodian, it's crucial to establish a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or differentiating factor for your brand before you start working on increasing brand awareness. This way, when you carry out interventions to raise brand awareness, it will only strengthen the differentiation you've already established and resonate with your target audience. In other words, brand awareness should and will support brand differentiation, not dilute it.

The key is to be intentional in your marketing efforts, ensuring that every initiative contributes to building brand awareness while staying true to your brand's unique identity. Regularly evaluate and adjust your strategies to maintain this delicate balance over time.

Defining the audience and persona is great, sometimes it’s great to define your staff and also define who aren’t your customers too! This gives a great counter balance.

Solange die Marke sich konsequent auf ihre Spitzenleistung und Kernwerte konzentriert und Massnahmen zur Intensivierung der Bekanntheit daran ausrichtet, kann es zu keiner Verw?sserung kommen. Damit schlie?en sich aber einige Massnahmen, je nach Marke, automatisch aus. Das muss man aushalten k?nnen.

Building out brand awareness doesn't mean sacrificing that brand differentiation you've worked hard to build. First off, to decide where you should start building awareness - look at your target audience and where they can be reached, as well as channels and formats that will align with and elevate your brand (for example, a B2B software brand may not thrive on TikTok). This is the base of a strategy for raising awareness in the right places to reach the right people with your clear brand message and values. Leverage the tools and channels that fit (such as PR, social media, OOH, TV, Meta ads, influencers etc.) to consistently build meaningful coverage that always includes your core brand messaging and USPs to support that differentiation.

You will only water down the elements that make your brand unique if you start looking at what others are doing with their content - and try to mimic it. Suddenly - everyone looks and sounds the same: similar photographs, same 'edgy' tone of voice, over-used 'top 10' blog posts. You must forge a unique path to communicate your brand to your audience, instead of doing what everyone else is doing. One way to do this is to check out what businesses in very different industries are doing. Would their content formats be unique in *your* industry? If so, try that. Be willing to get experimental and creative with your content!

I think one of the masters of this craft is Chick-fil-A. I have not seen such a successful internal/external values communicated throughout platforms and posts about what and who they believe in.

The only way to dilute brand differentiation is creative that sends mixed messages and is not coherent and fully aligned with the brand. This is true for all communication channels, but due to the nature of social media advertising, especially for social media.

I think most often people confuse followers for community. A large amount of follows does not mean a community. I think a great way to test if you have a community is the reaction you get when you start to branch out or share different perspectives. A large following is defined by accessibility. A community is defined by a common direction.

This community would serve you more than any paid focus group ever will. You get valuable insight and information into your brand perception, what consumers think about your products, what they value or despise about competitor products .... And even tell you what the next trend might be if analysed properly. It is not the same as having followers who like your post or enjoy seeing nice colors or pictures. These consumers are loyalists, fans and unpaid ambassadors for your brand. Nurture them like you would any new client.

A good message won’t cut through the noise without a clear finesse over the ‘small’ details like SEO. And a good roll-out hinges on the weakest link in the strategy; if SEO is the weak link… that’s a tragedy.

I think being a copy cat or unoriginal is what dilutes your brand, more than anything else. While trends come and go, it's best to remain consistent (but flexible) in how you approach what you feed your target audience in line with your brand objectives. Keep staying abreast with what they value but also figure out unique ways to join that conversation.

You create brand awareness based on brand differentiation. It is mutual - if done right each exists in an eco system that feed one another. The Dilution happens if you try to do something one off to gain short term popularity. E.g.: A new brand manager wants to make a mark in ones stint and does something drastic which dilutes the brand essence. Yes you can be disruptive and create differentiation but it has to be rooted in what the brand stands for. So how do you ensure that this is done? If you first identify what memory structures you want your brand to stand for and be sacrosanct about it. Thereafter whatever mean that you choose to make your brand different has to fit within/enhance the memory structures of the brand.