HighThere!, engaged DAB Marketing Solutions to clarify its market position as a cannabis-focused social networking SaaS.
Brainstorming workshops were conducted to identify a new brand template that moved the brand forward with a focus on distinctive emotional benefits and stigma mitigation.
The outcome was a clear and precise brand positioning statement including a meaningful and ownable value proposition, brand architecture as well as brand guidelines.
Discovery
Our brand positioning statement process starts with a defined consumer target your brand will serve. Then, we focus on the emotional and functional benefits that differentiate your brand. Finally, we use support points to help differentiate your brand from competitors.
Goal
The main goal of this project was to develop a positioning statement that communicates how HighThere! is different from the competing brands by developing a unique and ownable value proposition.
Objectives
- Define a classical positioning statement with clear target, frame of reference, point of difference, and reasons to believe.
- Design a practical brand architecture that guides features, content, and campaigns.
- Build a storytelling system for consistent narratives across product, growth, and partnerships.
- Instrument brand equity tracking to quantify impact and optimize over time.
Solution
There are 4 elements that make up a brand positioning statement. At DAB Marketing Solutions, we start with the definition of who will you serve. Then, lay out where you will play, and where you will win. To sum up, we use support points (Reasons to Believe) for why customers should believe you.
We then turn your brand’s features into consumer benefits and start thinking about what your consumer gets not about what your brand does. As a result, your brand positioning statement comes alive.
We use four steps to build a Consumer Benefits Ladder:
1. First, we leverage all available consumer research to brief the team. In particular, we define the consumer target profile with consumer insights, need states, and the consumer enemy.
2. Second, we brainstorm all possible brand features your brand offers and any brand assets. Most importantly, we focus on the features that give your brand a competitive advantage.
3. Next, we move up to the functional benefits. Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes, and for each feature on your list, ask, “If I am the consumer, what do I get from that?” We keep asking with answers that differentiate and move into a richer zone.
4. Finally, we move up to the emotional benefits by looking at each functional benefit and asking, “So, if I am the consumer, how does that make me feel?” Clearly, we keep asking the question until we see a deeper emotional space that you can play in that will help differentiate your brand.
After intensive discovery sessions with all stakeholders, i.e. interviews, brainstorming workshops, we gathered insights on who is the most motivated by what HighThere offers.
Results
We summarised our winning positioning statement in a space that is unique and motivating to the end user. The outcome was a clear and precise brand positioning statement including a meaningful and ownable value proposition, brand architecture as well as brand guidelines. Consequently, we were able to develop a unique brand positioning with a focus on distinctive emotional benefits that allowed the client to communicate their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in a consistent and uniform manner in the cannabis community.
The clarified emotional promise plus governance improved execution quality which resulted in an increase of 80% of followers in only three months after rollout.
Brands that speak to everyone speak to no one.
A strong brand not only makes performance marketing more effective in the short term, it’s also the foundation of sustainable growth.
CLIENT:
HighThere, Inc
CATEGORY:
CBD Wellness