Building Brand Identity In Retail

Have written about it in the past too, but strength of a brand cannot be measured by vanity metrics like number of award winning commercials, social media engagement/following or what other marketers think about the brand Here are 5 hard measurable business/marketing metrics which will tell you how strong your brand is 1. Price Elasticity of Demand: This is the measurement of change in demand with respect to the Price Elasticity= Percentage Change in Demand/Percentage Change in Price If you have a strong brand, you will have a lower price elasticity. Ideally as brand strength grows, the price elasticity should keep reducing 2. Contribution of Discounted Sales: Every brand has a standard market operating price( which could be MRP in few categories). And brands also have some sales through consumer discounts which are over and above the MOP Discounted Sales Contribution= Sales Volume with Discounts/ Total Sales Volume If you have a strong brand, the contribution of discounted sales will be lower. The ability to have more sales at the market operating price is a sign of a strong brand 3. Performance Ads Driven Sales: Every brand will have some organic sales( brand searches, repeats, Marketplace SEO etc) and some paid sales( Amazon ads, Google/FB ads) Performance Ads Driven Sales Percentage= Sales due to ads/Total Sales If you have a strong brand, the contribution of ads driven sales will be lower. A strong brand has higher repeats, higher brand searches and rank organically on top for generic searches on marketplaces 4. Performance Ads Driven Visitors: On the D2C website as well as marketplace listings, brands get both organic( brand searches and SEO) and paid ( Amazon Ads, Google/FB ads) visitors While the previous metric of ads driven sales is difficult for overall attribution( people clicking on ads to come to D2C website buys organically from marketplace is common), this is a easier metric to calculate Percentage of Performance Ads Driven Visitors= (Ads driven visitors on Marketplaces+ Ads driven visitors on D2C)/ (Total Visitors on Marketplaces+ Total Visitors on D2C) As brand strength grows, percentage of ads driven visitors should keep reducing 5. Share of Spends/Market Share: Share of spends in a category is the marketing spends done by the brand as a percentage of spends done by the entire category in a year. If a brand has a higher market share than share of spends, it means 2 things - Higher Conversion Rates & More Efficient Marketing Engine - High Baseline Sales When brands start, they would most likely have higher SOS than market share( as baseline is 0). But as brand strength grows, this number should be lower Strong brands should result in strong businesses. Done right, Investment in Brand Building always pay off financially. It means stronger brands are less reliant on performance marketing, discounts and can increase prices without drop in volumes.

H2 is here: time to audit your brand like a cfo would Here's how: the CFO edition. Let’s not sugar-coat it. • If your brand isn’t remembered, it’s not chosen. • If it’s not trusted, it’s not bought. • If it’s not consistent, it’s not credible. • If it’s not tracked, it’s not understood at C-level. And if it’s none of those… you’re burning money. If you’re leading a business (not just a brand team), here’s the brutal truth: Your brand just played H1. Time to check the scoreboard and reset for H2. Ball in the centre. Let’s go. Let’s look how to audit your brand in 4 steps: 1. Identity & Consistency → Ask: • Does your brand look and sound consistent everywhere? • Are you building trust or confusion? → Look at: • Visuals, tone, decks, social, email, signage...does it all feel like one brand? → Metric Check: • Visual consistency rate • Template adoption • Tone alignment across channels 2. Positioning & Differentiation → Ask: • Is your value prop still relevant? • Are you leading with value — or shouting features? → Run: • Messaging audit • 3-word perception survey • Alignment workshop → Metric Check: • Share of Voice (Brand24) • Branded Search (Google Trends) • Consideration tracking (Tracksuit) This is the CFO’s territory: Are you spending to be seen, or to be remembered? 3. Messaging & Resonance → Ask: • Is your story consistent or reinvented every time? • Is everyone telling the same thing? • Are our campaigns sticking? → Look at: • Top/bottom content, sales pitch, internal message match → Metric Check: • Message alignment • Sentiment (Brand24) • Recall (Tracksuit) 4. Internal Branding: External strength starts inside. → Ask: • Does everyone know what we stand for — and why we matter? • Is purpose guiding real decisions? →Look at: • Comms, onboarding, values in action, leadership tone →Metric Check: • Brand clarity pulse • Template use • Training coverage • Leadership alignment Your brand isn’t fluff. It’s a business asset. So TRACK IT. That’s how your CFO sees the value, in margins, shorter sales cycles, reduced churn, stronger pricing, and better talent. The data says: • Strong recall = faster closes (Harvard Business Review) • Consistent brands = 33% higher revenue (Forbes) • Positive sentiment = price advantage (Kantar) • Brands tracked well = outperform peers (Forbes) Sooo the question isn’t: “Do we have a brand?” It’s: Is our brand working as a business tool?

71% GenZ priorice Experience over Possessions? What you are going to sell if luxury is no longer about accumulating high-end goods? What about if it’s about curating meaningful, shareable moments? GenZ is turning away from material ownership in favor of rich, immersive experiences they can post, relive, and talk about. As a result, there's a rising appetite for experiential marketing, think EXCLUSIVE brand activations, immersive pop-ups, and limited drops that bring a sense of belonging and uniqueness. +71% Gen Z say they would rather invest in an EXPERIENCE than buy a physical item. +75% Gen Z beauty shoppers state that a brand’s CORE VALUES and storytelling play a major role in their purchase decisions. >>PRIORIZING experience over product<< Gen Z is noticeably shifting focus from traditional brand loyalty to experiential relevance. They aren’t looking to be sold a product, they’re seeking transformative, EMOTIONALLY resonant experiences. They crave offerings that feel like a story worth telling or a moment worth capturing, rather than just another item on the shelf. +Beauty brands that deliver LIMITED-edition releases or collaborative product experiences have seen a 43% rise in both engagement and sales conversions among Gen Z audiences. +58% of Gen Z consumers are drawn to INTERACTIVE retail formats, like pop-up shops, augmented reality try-ons, and experiential in-store events, over classic beauty counters and static product displays. >>EROSION of brand loyalty<< Only 22% of Gen Z beauty consumers say they consistently stick to one brand. Instead, EXPERIENTIAL loyalty programs, those built around exclusivity, engagement, and access, perform 2.5 times better than standard point-based systems. For Gen Z, LOYALTY isn’t about repetition or familiarity. Unlike previous generations, they aren’t loyal based on brand legacy or prestige alone. Their loyalty is emotional and fluid, formed when a brand aligns with their personal identity and offers moments of surprise, inclusion, and relevance. Experience-focused rewards, such as VIP event invites, early product access, or personalized brand content, create far more meaningful connections than transactional incentives. Gen Z’s trust is earned through shared values, co-creation, and memorable brand interactions. Strategic takeaways. Create buzz through limited-edition collaborations that feel like cultural moments. Enhance everyday interactions with AR try-ons, smart packaging, and tech-forward retail. Build community through exclusivity, invite-only drops, live events, and access-based perks that turn customers into insiders. FInd my curated search of examples and get inspired for your next success. Featured Brands: BCE Benefit Louis Vuitton Lush Pacific Werribee Rare Beauty Rhode Sephora Skims Sundae Valentino Vichy Wycon & nother Stories #beautypackaging #beautybusiness #beautyprofessionals #experienceretail #luxuryexperiences #genz

Marketers often blur the line between brand positioning and product positioning. The two are different and mixing them up weakens growth. Here’s a study of the distinction with two hypotheticals: 1. BrewCo (coffee brand): → Brand positioning: “BrewCo helps busy professionals start their day with clarity and calm.” → Product positioning: The cold brew is “the fastest, freshest way to recharge in the middle of a workday.” 2. FlowSync (collaboration platform): → Brand positioning: “FlowSync helps mid-sized companies simplify collaboration so teams can focus on growth, not admin.” → Product positioning: The automated reporting feature is “a tool for finance teams to cut reporting time by 60% each month.” But here’s where teams slip: they do product launches with messaging that doesn’t reinforce the brand promise. The worst? Features are marketed in isolation, diluting the bigger narrative. And they scale products without building brand recall in the market. There’s a way to leverage both. Use brand positioning as the umbrella. The long-term promise you want associated with your company. Then, shape product positioning as proof points that reinforce the brand while targeting specific needs. Align campaigns so each product strengthens the brand story. Brand → Trust Product → Proof Brand + Product → Compound trust with proof How do you balance brand and product positioning in your work? Let me know below.

Today, I had the pleasure of leading a strategy session with a global SAAS client who’s bringing multiple companies and products together under one brand. This kind of integration brings massive growth potential, but it also highlights a critical challenge: how to create product clarity that truly aligns with our brand strategy and positioning. Our first move? Identifying every product in the portfolio — about 100 unique offerings with distinct features, platforms, and markets. Getting this big-picture view is no small task, but it’s essential for building a cohesive customer experience. The challenge is to make sense of this in the light of a unifying strategic narrative. We have to make the complex simple. Clear. Consistent. Relevant. We have to ensure it can be navigated and that value is obvious to buyers. Here’s what we as a group are focused on: ✨ Unified Naming for Customer Trust – We saw today that product names aren’t consistent, and this can create confusion. Simplifying names to bring clarity and reflect a clear brand message is key to building recognition and trust. ✨ Packaging that Supports the Brand – Beyond naming, how we package products can make a big difference. We’re exploring ways to group products that make sense to our customers and align with the promise of convenience and simplicity. ✨ Product Insights for Strategy – We need to understand each product deeply — its target, its purpose, and its role in the customer journey. These insights help create a brand strategy that not only supports growth but stays true to the customer experience. For any brand going through M&A, aligning products with your brand strategy isn’t just practical — it’s transformational. Every product should reinforce your reason to be, identity and values, making it easy for customers to know, trust, and choose you and making it easy for your team to navigate internally Excited to watch this journey unfold with an incredible team! #strategy #branding #brandstrategy #BrandAlignment #portfolio #CustomerExperience #Leadership

Ecosystems are built on relevance, not reach. Companies often fall into the trap of building broad, scattered partner lists, hoping that quantity will somehow convert into pipeline. That is when partnerships become a numbers game, and hope becomes the strategy. But a wider ecosystem without shared customers, shared motion or shared outcomes just creates noise. What drives results is relevance. And that is where we focus. Regardless of maturity, the same rule applies: impact comes from going narrow and deep, not broad and hopeful. The partnerships that actually move the needle are embedded across the customer journey. They show up where your customers already are. They offer complementary value that makes the product or experience better. Think about Zeller launching inside Officeworks because that is where small business owners already shop. Or Uber and Spotify's integration that still drives millions of new users monthly. Or Canva and HubSpot, with ecosystem-level workflow built in. These are not just brand alignments. They are functional ecosystems, driving measurable outcomes from acquisition through to retention. The mistake is thinking partnerships are just about co-marketing or shared logos. In reality, the best ecosystems solve real problems across the full customer journey, from discovery and decision, all the way through to delivery and retention. And that is why more CROs and CFOs are leaning into partnerships. Because when executed well, an ecosystem strategy reduces sales hiring pressure, protects CAC and increases lead quality. Many of the PE-backed and founder-led teams we work with are not looking to add ten more sales reps. They are looking to go deeper with partners who influence, deliver and expand customer impact, with fewer resources. So the question is not “How many partners do we have?” It is “Who has our customer’s attention, and how do we build something meaningful with them?” Curious how you are thinking about relevance versus reach in your own ecosystem? Send a DM. Always up for the chat. #growth #ecosystem #partnerships

How to position your offer so that customers will buy it (5 steps framework to nail your positioning) 🎯 Two weeks ago, I attended a workshop by April Dunford at the ARRtist Summit. She shared a powerful story about turning a CRM system from an underdog into a market leader. That caught my attention since we also struggled a lot to find the right positioning for Scripe. So, directly when I came home, I tried out the 5-step framework she used: 1️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀: Ask, "If we didn’t exist, what would customers do?" This reveals your real competition. -> For us, it was manual writing, Notion, or ChatGPT. 2️⃣ 𝗗𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀: Identify what you can do that others can’t. Our unique edge? -> Real-time data on LinkedIn performance and the ability to generate high-performing content quickly out of any form of unstructured input. 3️⃣ 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Translate capabilities into customer benefits. ->Scripe acts as your professional ghostwriter, guiding you on what works on LinkedIn, helping you create high-impact content that drives leads and clients. 4️⃣ 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: Focus on those who truly need and value what you offer. Not everyone will be a fit, and that’s okay. -> We target B2B companies needing high-trust, high-ticket sales. 5️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗿𝘆: Position your product in a context that makes its value obvious. -> We're the first social content CMS that makes it easy and fast to create, manage and collaborate on personalised content at scale. By leveraging these components, we created a compelling and unique position for Scripe. 😅 Next, we just have to reconsider how we also implement and show this on our website and social channels. What's your go-to strategy when positioning your brand? Any frameworks you’d recommend? #BrandPositioning #MarketingStrategy #B2B #contentmanagement

I recently did an in-depth audit of Blank Street Coffee, a fast-growing challenger brand known for its minimalist vibe, app-first ordering, and matcha obsession. Using frameworks like the 7Ps, PESTLE, Customer Journey Mapping, and Competitor Analysis, I dug deep into what they’re doing well—and where they have opportunities. Here’s a detailed breakdown of my process and findings. This is for anyone who loves brand strategy, product marketing, or growing challenger brands. Swipe through 👉 #ProductMarketing #BrandStrategy #DigitalAudit #MarketingFrameworks #ChallengerBrand #MarketingCaseStudy

Your digital brand strategy is likely obsolete. Consumers no longer wait for you to define your brand. They experience it, shape it, and share it in real time. The old top-down brand monologue is dead. What lives now is a multi-voice, always-on dialogue. If your brand isn’t actively part of that conversation, you’re not just behind ... you’re invisible. The brands that succeed in this environment do five things exceptionally well: 1. They build mobile-first websites that convert. 2. They invest in SEO and paid search to be found when it matters. 3. They create content that builds trust, not just clicks. 4. They use social and email to build community, not just push promotions. 5. And they measure relentlessly because if you’re not tracking share of voice, sentiment, and real engagement, you’re flying blind. This isn’t about more digital noise. It’s about intentionality. A cohesive digital ecosystem. Authentic connection. Insights that lead to action. Digitally native brands like Glossier, Warby Parker, and Allbirds don’t just “do digital.” They are digital. They turn data into an unfair advantage, obsess over experience, and scale loyalty by design. That’s the standard now. Be always on. Be strategic. Be human. Because the question isn’t whether your brand is online. It’s whether it’s alive there. Art+Science Analytics Institute | University of Notre Dame | University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | University of Chicago | D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University | ELVTR | Grow with Google - Data Analytics #Analytics #DataStorytelling

Most brands fight for market share. A few however rewrite the market. They don’t just stand out, they make everything before them look obsolete. This is the power of disruption. The ability to break away from category norms and create an entirely new playing field. Because category creation is about finding the right gaps and filling them. The brands that master this strategy don’t just compete, they make competition irrelevant. Take SNITCH, for instance. Traditional menswear brands rely on seasonal launches and slow production cycles. Snitch saw an opportunity—why wait months when you can drop new styles every week? By embracing a drop culture and a D2C approach, Snitch disrupted men’s fashion in India, making it more dynamic, trend-driven, and instantly accessible. Then there's Wholsum Foods (Slurrp Farm and Millé). Baby food was all about the same old rice-and-wheat formula. Slurrp Farm decided to rewrite that narrative by bringing millets back into the mainstream. And offer baby food with an Indian touch. Think khicdi and dosa mixes. Instead of marketing to just health-conscious parents, they positioned their brand as a modern, fun, and sustainable choice for the next generation. Another great example is Foxtale, a brand that took on the cluttered skincare industry. While legacy brands relied on buzzwords and mystery ingredients, Foxtale did the opposite—it built its brand around transparency, science-backed formulations, and education. And then there's Mokobara, which saw a glaring gap in the luggage industry. While most brands focused solely on utility, Mokobara combined functionality with aesthetics, creating travel gear that wasn’t just practical but stylish. These brands don’t just have customers. They have die-hard loyalists. They build communities. They create tribes. That’s what disruption is all about. And in a world overloaded with choices, being a category leader isn’t enough anymore. You need to be the category creator. Which other brand do you see as a disruptor? #branding #startups #marketing #categorycreation