The Top Of The Mental Recall

Did you know that wanted brands have a position in your mind? Did you realise that particular words can actually trigger your mind to immediately recall specific brand names? Let us illustrate this point using the list of words below. As you go through the list, what brands come to your mind first?

• Batteries
• Overnight delivery
• Toothpaste
• Credit card
• Budget airline
• Ice-cream
• Instant noodles
• Orange cordial
• Canned soup
• Tea
• Oats

Your brain just automatically recalled those brand names, right? The question is, if you didn’t intentionally train your mind to recall those brands, then how did you automatically recall them? Well, these automatic brand recalls were intentionally created in your mind by brand owners through brand positioning. So, you didn’t personally position the brand in your mind. The brand owners did.

But what exactly is brand positioning? Well, brand positioning is about influencing the perception of a brand in the minds of consumers without altering the core product. While a winning product is important, the consumers must also perceive it as a winning brand. A great product can enter the market but if the consumers don’t know or don’t think it’s a great product, then chances are they’re not going to buy it.

Brand positioning also aims to create a simple brand message or promise that can be summarised in one or two words. For example: batteries – Energizer, toothpaste – Colgate, credit card – Citibank, instant noodles – Maggi. By creating such a strong word association, whenever a person needs batteries, they think of Energizer first. Whenever sportsmen need to rehydrate, they drink 100 Plus. It is a brand positioning that is built over time through clear and consistent brand communication that makes a brand truly wanted.

In short, brand positioning, is a systematic process or strategy of finding opportunities to position a brand at the top 3 recall positions in consumers’ minds. In today’s consumer market that is saturated with brands, our minds can’t possibly contain a directory of every existing brand. As such, our minds create a top recall list where information is stored in order of priority from the top down. In fact, we normally remember the top 3

brands and dismiss the rest. But, of course, the ideal position that every brand desires in the minds of consumers is the top 3 recall positions.

But how does a brand position itself firstly in the minds of consumers and ultimately at the top 3 recall positions of their memory? Top recall brands are generally either known to be the first or the best. Everybody remembers the first man on the moon. But who remembers the second man on the moon? Or the third or fourth for that matter? The status of a pioneer is exclusive and has the advantage of the first brand name in creating a new top recall list in the minds of consumers. In this case, Xerox is a primary example. Having introduced the world’s first photocopying machine in 1906, the brand name has become synonymous to the product, process or action of photocopying that we often times hear statements like, “Can you please Xerox 20 copies of this document for me?” Other examples in this context are like Post-It, Pampers, Tupperware and many more.

Alternatively, a brand can dominate the first position as the best in a particular category, feature or service. Whenever a person needs a robust and reliable car with an array of safety features, Volvo is the first brand that comes to mind. Or, if there’s a parcel that needs to be delivered across the world before the next day, we call FedEx. The excellence of a brand and its consistency in delivering the brand promise earns its top brand positioning in the minds of consumers. That is why we often buy computers directly from DELL, mobile phones from Nokia, insurance policies from Prudential and a host of other top choice brands.

Therefore, while many brand owners have great products or services to offer their consumers, the positioning of their brands in consumers’ minds is equally important to make a brand wanted. A common mistake that brand owners make is to place great products in the market without investing in branding to further position the brand in the minds of its consumers. Furthermore, brand owners sometimes invest more money in modifying or improving their product in order to improve sales when the problem is not in the product, rather it is in the positioning of the brand in the minds of the consumers.

There are many brands out there in the market, but are they really branded? A brand that is truly wanted is usually positioned at the top 3 recall positions in consumers’ minds. Ultimately, if you have a great product that is facing sales challenges in the market, perhaps it would be good to ask where is your brand positioned in the minds of your consumers?

To position your brand at the top of consumers’ minds, talk2us@peopalove.com or call
+604-2288 696.