The chief strength of digital marketing has long been that we can tell you exactly which half of your marketing dollars are working and what their ROI is. But as digital marketing merges with traditional marketing\u2019s higher value skill-sets (branding and public representation) digital marketing risks losing its long-held strength of palpable and quantifiable results.<\/p>\n
As digital strategists it can be tempting to adopt models like perceptual mapping or SWOT analysis, but both of these tools employ subjective reasoning and are always subject to an unhealthy dose of confirmation bias in their execution. Thus\u00a0your CEO\u2019s SWOT analysis comes complete with pet projects but fails to address persistent\u00a0blunders – it ends up far different than what\u00a0your middle-managers would produce, and is thus unlikely to serve any larger organizational purpose. That\u2019s why Niraj Dawar and Charan K. Bagga\u2019s article in Harvard Business Review, A Better Way to Map Brand Strategy<\/a>, caught my eye. Using their model of Centrality-Distinctiveness (C-D) mapping in order to plot out a brand’s position amidst their competitive landscape gives you a wider\u00a0strategic perspective – one derived from quantifiable metrics rather than instinct.<\/p>\n The Basics of Centrality-Distinctiveness Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n Tracking brand growth (digital marketers read: brand mentions and branded search traffic) still fails to capture the magic of how a brand makes us feel as the perspective buyer or end user.<\/p>\n Who are you going to have over for drinks at your house, the guy drinking a pint of Guinness or knocking back a 40 of Milwaukee\u2019s Best? Which would you pay more for, a Sam Adams or some Tecate? The answers to these questions probably\u00a0jumped\u00a0right into your mind.<\/p>\n Why? Because both are dependent on gut sensibilities – your reaction to\u00a0the appeal and positioning of brands – and this is what Centrality and Distinctiveness Maps help us understand. By plotting price on the y-axis and sales volume\/market share on the x-axis we can quickly develop a strong framework for understanding\u00a0where your brand is positioned now – and where you should be moving.<\/p>\n However, when we examine brands with a similar price and market share – say, Sam Adams and Heineken – it’s harder to make this type of decision. The hesitation here is that both brands tend to share brand positioning strategies and target markets.<\/p>\n C-D Maps are powerful because they allow us to take quantifiable metrics, sales volume and\/or market share & pricing (derived from the premium people are willing to pay, as established by the framing, or distinctiveness, of a brand in the mind of consumers.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Matching your brand\u2019s business model to its position<\/strong><\/p>\n Every brand wants to be held in the same regard as BMW. But if Toyota, Honda, and Ford understand how<\/em> and why<\/em> they\u2019re competing for the same business thaey have real, actionable insight from a strategic perspective. C-D maps should quickly tell Kia\u2019s CMO that stealing market share from Mazda is a better propositioning then getting it from Cadillac. At the same time Audi knows it doesn\u2019t need to start a pricing war with Lincoln.<\/p>\n What Centrality-Distinctiveness Maps tell us:<\/strong><\/p>\n The graph can be broken down into 4 parts. Brands are either unconventional, Aspirational, Peripheral, or Mainstream.<\/p>\n Unconventional Brands\u00a0<\/strong>are distinctive but not central, meaning that they can command high prices through their brand appeal (think Tesla or Mini Coopers) but they just aren\u2019t that appealing to the population at large.<\/p>\n Aspirational Brands <\/strong>are Central and Distinctive and are thus what many marketers and customers aspire to, meaning they have high sales volume and can command high prices because they are held in high regard.<\/p>\n Peripheral<\/strong> Brands<\/strong> are not central and not that distinctive meaning they don\u2019t sell to very many people and they aren\u2019t held in high regard or easily distinguished from each other. (welcome to the graveyard of competing on price)<\/p>\n Mainstream Brands<\/strong> are central but not that distinctive, think the Nissans, Dodges, and Fords of the world, they are appealing deals for much of the population, but don\u2019t leave you with that wow factor, so you\u2019re not going to move into your mom\u2019s do roll in a Dodge drop-top.<\/p>\n Centrality-Distinctiveness Mapping Applied to Digital Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone loves 2X2 charts.. but can this really be a foundation for a complex marketing strategy? My adaptation of C-D Mapping is useful for digital marketing and inbound work because it allows you to merge keyword strength (the only strong insight you have into competitor action) with a slightly subjective list of features on sites within your niche. To illustrate I\u2019ve dissected keyword data for\u00a0the term \u201cdrawer slide,\u201d an elastic product category with both B2B and B2C market forces at play.<\/p>\n