Bacardi: Brand Positioning

When you’re running a marketing team, how do you ensure that that team has those foundations set and true and ready, rather than drifting away, like you see some brands?

It’s a great question and it’s back to the belief that I have, as a brand builder. Don’t do anything, until you know your brand’s position. Your brand position is, who is your target consumer, what’s their massive insight – that unmet need, want, belief or desire – that exists in their life, that your brand can play a role in? What do they think of your brand today? What do you want them to think of your brand? What does your brand stand for and what does it promise to do for them, every day? Then everything you do, needs to absolutely be on brand.

The truth is, consumers don’t care about our brands. They really don’t care. We like to think they do. We live our brands, every day, but they don’t. They’ve got family, friends, work, bill, housing, healthcare, Wi-Fi, to worry about. Our brands are not even in that hierarchy. So we’ve got a very small opportunity, to own one little place in their mind. Just one little place in their mind. If we’re telling them different things, all the time, they won’t understand our brand and we won’t occupy a place in their mind. If we’re consistently telling them, we are about sharing happiness and refreshment – Coca-Cola – if we’re continually telling them the same thing, we will occupy that space in their mind. When they’re thinking sharing happiness or refreshment, they’ll think Coca-Cola. That’s what I call a well-positioned brand. That’s what we’re trying to do.