Brand Positioning - The Foundation of Marketing with Brian Gencher

In this episode of Storytelling for Engagement, host Miranda O’Connor speaks with Brian Gencher, a brand and marketing consultant and fractional CMO. Brian explains how storytelling humanizes a brand, builds emotional connections, and strengthens relationships with customers. The conversation dives into the critical role of brand positioning - why it’s the foundation of all marketing strategy, how it helps companies differentiate themselves, create clarity, drive customer loyalty, and attract the right talent. Brian outlines six key benefits of strong brand positioning, from influencing perceptions and simplifying decision-making to enhancing communication and long-term business success. 

Connect with Brian Gencher https://www.linkedin.com/in/briangencher/

Connect with Miranda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirandaoconnor-mba/

Learn more about The Art of Storytelling: https://www.theartofstorytelling.com/

Transcript

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Consumers today, as opposed to 20 years ago, are more skeptical, and they're less likely to trust information coming directly from a company. Yeah. Which is why, you know, in social media, influencers have become very financially viable job, if you will. Companies recruit them to share stories on their behalf because they're more believable. People are more willing to believe a third party. Welcome to Storytelling for Engagement, the podcast where we talk about all things creative and content related to make your story unforgettable. I’m your host, Miranda O’Connor from The Art of Storytelling, and I’m excited to start this storytelling journey with you. Today, we have Brian Gencher. He is a brand and marketing consultant and a fractional CMO. Brian, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what exactly is a fractional CMO? Hi, everybody. My name is Brian. As Miranda mentioned. Pretty much what I do and why I got to where I am is I've worked in marketing for large multinational companies and then smaller entrepreneurial companies doing brand strategy, marketing strategy and the implementation. As I started transitioning from large companies to small companies, I noticed the need for these small companies to have a certain level of expertise and experience that they normally couldn't afford. And that brought me into the CMO role, which is a Chief Marketing Officer. But fractional and what that is, it's a part time. So what I do is I go to these companies and I work one day or two days a week on their behalf as their in-house marketing executive. That way they can get the level of expertise that they need at a fraction of hiring somebody full time. So if a company doesn't have the financial resources or their place in their development where they don't have enough work for a full time senior executive, I fill that gap. Excellent. Yeah. And I can see that being very useful to companies that don't have the finances to hire you full time, but still want to make some good improvements with their marketing. Absolutely. It's also part of an emerging trend with the whole gig economy out there. A lot of these companies are looking for ways to save money, yet still operate as a, you know, a really true company. Yes, exactly. So this is a storytelling type podcast. And so the first question is, why is storytelling important for companies? Why do you think so? Well, there's a couple of reasons why storytelling is extremely important for companies and it's really that stories are a very powerful tool for communication, for marketing and for overall business success. They're very effective in helping companies tell their audience who they are, what they stand for, and what they do for the customer. So above all, why the customer should care. And a strong story builds a strong brand, which builds a strong relationship with that customer. It humanizes the company and builds and creates a narrative that really resonates people with people on an emotional level. Yes, exactly. And I love that you say humanize, because I think that's really what what my company is trying to bring to the table is humanizing the company and the brand by including the people in this story. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So talk to me about brand positioning and why is brand positioning important to a company's story? Okay. Well, with a lot of companies, they believe they know who they are and what they stand for. But if they really don't have a solid idea or can't verbalize it, then there's no way that they can stand out and resonate with their customers. So by understanding your brand, positioning what you do and why your customers should care, you can then easily communicate to them your brand positioning is the filter and articulation of all of the elements you want to develop a picture in your consumers minds of how you want to be seen. Mm hmm. So to really get into the storytelling of who you are first, you need that positioning to understand who you are and why the customer will care. Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. And that is a bit of a difficult starting point, I think, for some companies is is to be in between there where you are telling your authentic story, but you're doing it by positioning your brand in a certain way. Do you find that the companies have a lot of trouble figuring out what that is? Absolutely. Every company that I've worked with from small entrepreneurial one man shops to large multinationals, when they wrestle or struggle with their brand positioning, they really can't communicate internally or externally why somebody would want to do business with them. So it really is the fundamental starting point of all strategy and the biggest hurdle that most companies face in their development. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So tell me more about how a strong brand story or strong brand positioning is important. I know there's many reasons. Tell us what you think. Okay. I'll give you the top six. And they kind of intertwine. There's a bit of a gray area in some of them, but the brand positioning is really vital to a company because it differentiates a company from the others. Especially in today's world where there's a huge influx of information, people are inundated with messaging all the time. They've got their smartphone in front of them. It's tough to break through all that noise. So the differentiation of your brand helps you stand out from all that noise. It highlights what makes you unique and sets you apart from your competition. It also builds brand loyalty when your customer understands who you are and they resonate with your brand positioning. They share the same values that your company is projecting. They're more likely to become a very loyal customer. And the stronger that relationship builds, these people not only become loyal, they become advocates for you, and they become a marketing arm for you at zero cost. Another very important part is then the decision making customers, whether they want to admit it or not, make their choices based on perceptions, not necessarily the features, but the benefits. And a well-defined brand positioning helps the customer make a quicker decision because it simplifies their evaluation process. It gives them a reason to choose one brand over another because they know what they're going to be getting. The brand a badge of expectation of quality. So the stronger the brand, people know that they're going to be getting value out of that. The strong positioning also helps with effective and consistent communication. One of the biggest mistakes that I see a lot of companies do is they'll put out different advertisings with conflicting messaging or different messaging, which can confuse the end user the customer. So if you use your brand positioning as a focus point for all that communication. You ensure that all of your messaging is consistent. It adds clarity as opposed to confusion. If you think about every time you talk to a customer, a consumer, or every interaction anybody in your company has with those people, there's an opportunity to confuse or clarify. And as I said, the brand positioning is that focal point. And I know you have more points, but is the brand positioning something that all of the employees in the company need to understand and really buy into? It needs to be embedded into the into the culture of the company? Or are we just talking about like the tactical things here, like the words that they use? Oh, no, it has to live within the organization. If people in the company don't understand the brand positioning when they interact with the end user, the customer, there's going to be confusion as opposed to the clarification. So it's absolutely imperative that everybody in the company understands what does this company stand for and why a customer should care. Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. Did you have more points? Yeah. Well, also, as people's brand perception with a consumer's mind increases in the positive. There's a value that goes with it. There's the security. Knowing I'm going to get the right product for my need. I know I'm going to get quality. I know I'm going to get the best service. So there's a price attached to that. And people are willing to pay more when they know what they're going to be getting and ultimately will get that higher value because of the brand positioning that it builds. There's long term success of the company, both financially but also on a HR level. A lot of people don't think about this, but I want to sell my product. And if people really resonate and respect my brand, they want to buy it. But the other side for an H.R. perspective is if people know what my company is all about, they share the same values and they they want to be part of that. I'm going to be an employer of choice. People are going to come and work with me. So I attract the best people and I retain them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I do see that with some some of our bigger clients. You know, they want to tell their story not just to keep selling their product or service, but to be able to attract and retain the best employees that have the same values. and want to be part of the mission that they are on. And it comes back to that human element of the emotional connection. Yeah. Did you have any other points to add to that? Well, I could go on forever on it, but those really are the key points. You know, ultimately, a strong brand creates a strong emotional connection, builds brand loyalty, builds high value, demands a premium price. There was actually a study done by Forbes magazine of the top 100 companies on the U.S. Stock Exchange. And pretty much what it found is of those companies, 80% of their value was their brand. So these were companies that people wanted to be part of or wanted to buy from because of that positioning. Mm hmm. Okay. And do you have any, like, success stories that you want to share about a company that you've really helped and have made some big impact with? I could talk I could talk about several, but I'll go back to one of my last corporate roles. I think most people are familiar with Crown Royal, the Canadian Whiskey. When I inherited that portfolio, it had been seeing a decade of decline in terms of volume and and market share. The brand positioning had gotten lost over time. It was the perceptions that were built in the consumer mind was it's now the good stuff. I'm going to pull it out on special occasions. It's not for every day and we needed to break that paradigm. So we rebuilt the brand positioning to make it more about the consumer than about the whiskey. So we we pretty much followed the L'Oreal tagline You're worth it. And we built a whole new brand positioning around the person being the high value and deserving the respect and the recognition of its peers, but in a very humble, social, authentic way. Mm hmm. So now Crown Royal became a badge, a reflection of the person who was sharing his expertise, his advice, his generosity with. So it really changed the whole paradigm. And after that launch, we saw Crown Royal start to regain volume growth and saw its first share gains in almost a decade. Wow. And so what did that rebrand look like? Like, what did you have to do with the, you know, strategic and tactical? What did it look like to consumers? Well, it comes back to or it starts with the consumer and how a consumer is influencing your brand. And as I said earlier, it's the perception that your customers have and you want the perception to be very positive. So we went back to the consumers of Crown Royal. We did research and we pretty much asked them, what does it mean to you? We built what that's called the brand Essence Wheel, which was a summary of all of these perceptions out there. And we looked at them and we looked at which perceptions would be limiting to the growth of the brand, which perceptions we could leverage to drive growth. We then looked at the needs and wants and motivations of our audience, and we found the sweet spot. We found an insight behind it that was men wanted to be seen as authentic. The go to guy, the linchpin of their social circle. And we then built the brand positioning around that with how Crown Royal highlights those personality traits and aspects in that person. Mm hmm. So it really started with the consumer understanding their needs, their wants and their motivations. And then we dug into the psychology behind the behavior, and we married all that together to come up with positioning that resonated with them on that stronger emotional level. The brand was no longer the good stuff. It was I'm the Good Stuff, and this brand is the badge, that projects that for me. Right. Okay. And how was that actually communicated to to the consumers? Like, was it at the point of sale? Like, at what point did you want them to change their perception of the brand? Well, we we went through a full omnichannel communication. All of the messaging, whether it was on shelf at the LCBO or other liquor stores, radio, billboards, website, it was a whole new campaign, which was called Long Live the Noble Spirit. So it was highlighting, reflecting and recognizing those moments that people see as an everyday part of their life. But it deserves respect. So some of the campaigns were I’ll use the out-of-home, the billboards, for example. We not only married the message to the media, but where the media was so in billboards near hockey rinks, we had messaging that said Long live the chauffeur. The coach. The hockey dad. Long live the noble spirit. Mm. Near Home Depots and Home Rentals, we had a billboard that said Long live the craftsman whose handshake is his word, on taxicabs and for responsible drinking. We had long live the designated driver. So it was recognizing these people who were doing these stand up, noble type of acts, but were very ordinary and everyday that people could identified with. So it really covered off absolutely everything we did. Every story we told was based on that brand positioning. Right. Okay. And why do you think the brand lost its story before you took it over? Why do you think it reached that point where it was only being pulled out, you know, on special occasions? Over time, if you neglect the customer perceptions of how a brand is transitioning, people will create a story of their own. So an absence of communication in absence of information, human nature dictates I'm going to make up my own story. And what had happened with a number of different circumstances, with Seagrams being sold off, with brands changing hands, with lack of priority, lack of focus on the consumer, and what the consumer thought about the brand. It just kind of started getting lost. People started to take a look at the old and say, This is what it now means to me. And over time it just kind of evolved that way. So unless the brand positioning is constantly refreshed, looked at and kept current, it can go off in the direction that you're not intending it to go. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. And I always say, you know, if you're not telling your story, someone else is, because there's always many different stakeholders that are forming this brand. Right? And as much as the company wants to position themselves, they can't 100% have control over what that brand story is going to be because everyone else has their own opinion. There are many stakeholders that are involved and many thoughts that build this vision of what this brand is. So if you are not actually actively participating in that, then you're leaving your story up to everyone else to tell on your behalf. And that goes back to the whole consistency part. When you have that strong brand positioning, you've got that insistant story, you're constantly feeding the positives of those perceptions that you want. So you control brand. And you control the image that has in the consumer's mind and the stories are the only way to do that. Mm hmm. Yeah. Because the stories are what people are going to remember. So unless you have those stories out there, you're not giving them anything to really stick in their brain. You know, another great example and this is more on the B2B side is with CRM software. And the two that I like to talk about is Salesforce and Zoho. Zoho was established four or five years before Salesforce. Zoho’s starting monthly cost, I believe, is $19. Salesforce is about $24. Fundamentally, they do the exact same thing. Salesforce is not as user friendly as Zoho, but they've got a much better online support. So net net, they're they're absolutely the same. Salesforce is worth oh, I can't remember if it's $4 billion where Zoho is only worth 40 million. Mm hmm. And the reason why nobody knows about Zoho unless you've actively looked into CRM software. Salesforce is out there and they've actually built an entire marketing department or sub department that all they do is they take customer success stories and they build narratives to communicate and share with potential customers. They're telling a story. Zoho isn't. Absolutely. Yeah. And I love customer success stories. I love doing testimonials. And that comes back to the brand loyalty. The stronger the connection you have with your customers, they become the advocates. They share their successes on your behalf. Yeah. Yeah. And it's always easier to have someone else talk about your. Your company and your brand and your product. Then you talk about it yourself, right, as much as you need to. It's always easier to let someone else do it, and it comes across so much more authentic and believable. Yeah, absolutely. And consumers, you know, like everything else, evolve over time. And consumers today, as opposed to 20 years ago, are more skeptical, and they're less likely to trust information coming directly from a company. Yeah. Which is why, you know, in social media, influencers have become very financially viable job, if you will. Companies recruit them to share stories on their behalf because they're more believable. People are more willing to believe a third party. So how does a company create its brand positioning? As I said, it really starts with the customer, the consumer, and you need to understand their needs, their wants and the motivations behind what they do. A lot of marketers will look at, observe behavior and say, My customer is doing X and Y, so I need to be there in front of them when they're doing that. Mm hmm. What I do is I take a little bit of a psychological view of not what they're doing, but why they're doing it. What is the motivation behind that behavior So I can get into their decision cycle before they're standing in front of a shelf. I build the messaging that drives them to the shelf looking for me as opposed to being interruptive, whether when they're already there. Right. But it's not really enough, as I said. Also, it's understanding the current perceptions that your company or brand has in the consumer's mind. And if they're negative, you need to work to mitigate against them. And if there's positives or things that they're perceiving that you haven't thought about, you need to really act on those and build your positioning in a way that's going to strengthen those perceptions and mitigate against the negatives. Mm hmm. So there's a huge process of research, clarification, looking at needs, wants, and looking at what the customers, consumers want, looking at what the competitors do and don't do. And then putting all of that together, all that information and finding that sweet spot, the motivation that's going to drive the behavior and emotions you want. Mm hmm. Okay. And I know you also work with some small businesses. So if you're working with a really small business, how do you go about doing the customer research? Like, if they don't have a lot of customers, they only service, you know, a few a few customers at a time. How do you how do you do that on a small scale? Well, what I'll start with is I'll get permission from the company to reach out to their customers. And if they're small enough, I will make some phone calls. If not, I do have a research platform that I've partnered with where I can reach out to the customers at virtually no cost. I have a survey that's done, so it's very quick, efficient and cost effective. If they're a little bit larger, they want to talk to a much larger audience than using that same research platform. I can, you know, get out a large market research survey, much like the big companies do, but instead, instead of spending 20 or $30,000 for the research, I can do it for about two or $3,000. So it doesn't matter the size of the company, I find a way to work with that company that helps fit their needs within their their their budget and the resources, because the last thing I want to do is turn a company down that needs help, that just can't get there for some reason. You know, one of the whole reasons I became a fractional chief marketing officer is I saw this need out there and I love seeing companies succeed. So I find ways to help them. Mm hmm. And do you think it's it's a fun and a rewarding job when you can work with many companies at the same time instead of just working with one company? It's mixed. There's times where I miss working for a large organization where you're you do the strategy and you roll your sleeves up and you get right into it and you see the fruits of your labor down the road. On the other hand, when you're able to do that for a large number of companies, but you don't get as deep into the roots as you could and you don't see as directly the fruits of your labor or immediately it's a bit of a trade off. So in one hand, I love helping more companies get there and I love seeing them succeed. At other times I miss being at the end of that cycle. Yeah. Mm hmm. Okay. All right. Well, Brian, do you have any last thoughts that you want to share with us? Yeah, just one. And it's, you know, understanding your customer helps you spin your story, but understanding your customer goes beyond developing your story. It's how you tell it and where you tell it. So you can tell your story to somebody, but if they're not willing to listen to it or they're preoccupied with something else, your story is going to land flat. So by digging deep into your customer, understanding who they are, where they get their media, what other media happens, what's a lifestyle, what tone of personality do they like in their messaging? You can then change your story and tell your story in the way they want to be heard. They want to hear it in the place. They want to hear it. So absolutely everything that any company does needs to be customer consumer centric for that reason. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, it comes down to knowing your market and knowing your customers is the first step. Absolutely. And people may say, oh, yeah, that's marketing 1 to 1. And it absolutely is. But when people actually get to doing it, they forget, they forget it or they don't know how to get there. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, Brian, this has been extremely enlightening. Thank you so much for being here and talking with us today. The pleasure was mine. Thank you. And that concludes another episode of Storytelling for Engagement. If you found value in today’s episode, don’t forget to like and share, and visit our website at theartofstorytelling.com to learn more about video storytelling content.