2 minutes ago. You knew nothing about me. Now.
You know my name. You know my company. And you still don't know that much about me.
But one thing you probably gather that if I get involved in something, you know, the ethos behind it,
you know that I'm probably making decisions from from from a posture of purpose and not one just of revenue.
And at the core of all marketing, at the core of all marketing, see,
in the business world, as we create our own nomenclature, we create our own vernacular.
We want to feel very good talking about these terms and confusing others with these term.
But the reality is marketing is storytelling. It's the stories that we tell.
And all of marketing as a business, as a solopreneur, as an entrepreneur,
starts with the essence and defining the essence of who you are and why you do what you do.
That all starts with positioning and and branding.
Now, Professor Young Moon at Harvard University, who is one of the world's leading experts on branding.
She wrote a book called Different, which I suggest as an additional resource.
You guys all buy off of Amazon. It's fabulous. She defines positioning as occupying a distinct place in the mind of your audience or user.
Now, in classical positioning studies, you have something called category attributes.
These are the attributes that are absolutely essential for you to compete in the marketplace in which you're trying to operate.
And these are your basic features. But in order for you to set yourself apart.
In a market, you need to supplement category attributes with augmented attributes.
These are the things that give you your brand yourself distinction.
They make you sui generis, one of a kind.
And in a world that's saturated with seeking our attention, your augmented attributes are not only why people buy from you,
but more importantly, why they pay attention to you in the first place.
What is my favourite cafe in the world called Box Brownie?
It's in Stratford upon Avon, my second home.
Now, what are the category attributes of a box brownie or any of our corner coffee shops that we love so much?
They sell coffee, they have cakes. Box Brownie just introduced breakfast.
I love breakfast. You're happy for me. But what are the augmented attributes?
They use beans from the only roaster in Stratford upon Avon.
Their milk is delivered daily from a local farm. That's. That's less than ten miles away.
Their bread and croissants are brought over by the local baker.
He hands them himself and all the regulars that are there in the morning meet and see the guy.
And it's 5 minutes down the road. And there is a woman in Stratford upon Avon, which we've affectionately called the cake lady,
who makes the most despicably gluttonous Bakewell that you could possibly imagine.
It is unbelievable. And everybody knows about this woman and then has procured her services to provide all his cakes and add box brownie.
Now, why do I go to Box Brownie? I go to Box Brownie because of the category attributes.
Right. But they have coffee, they have breakfast, they have things to eat. But why do I care?
Why am I sitting here talking to you about it? Why do I tell all my friends about it?
It's augmented attributes.
Because my friend Ben, who runs Box Brownie, everything he does is hand crafted, is local, is intentional and is deliberate.
And those are the reasons why I talk about them now.
Within positioning studies, there are all different types of postures an organisation can get into.
I cannot go into detail because I'm probably already going to ramble on past my deadline.
But I will say this if you go to Amazon, you just type in young mi moon, pick up the book different.
I mean, it's a fascinating study on positioning and it'll be very useful no matter what business you decide to get into.
Now, once you settled on your category attributes and you wrap them around choice augmented attributes,
you need to begin to start thinking about marketing or the story you tell about yourself and about your business.
Now, broadly speaking, there are all different types of marketing, but broadly speaking, there are two types of marketing.
There's functional marketing that's price features, speed taste, the functions,
the features of the thing that you're you're trying to get my attention up.
And then there's aspirational marketing where you're inviting us to be a part of a narrative, a movement, a story, something bigger than ourselves.
Functional tells me what you do. Aspirational tells me why you do it and why I should care.
Now we might as well look at some American political campaign ads, because over the last three months, my country has spent $4 billion.
Yes, children, that's with a B in order to get our attention in these midterm elections that are happening today,
I'm going to transport us back to 2008. Functional, right.
Functional at the most. Functional you can possibly be.
This is who I am. Subtext.
Please don't forget my face when you go to the polls. Aspirational.
This is what I stand for. Subtext.
Of course. You know who I am. Functional.
Our coffee will save you money. Aspirational.
Our coffee will change your life. Box underscore brownie again. See?
These boys know what they're doing. Now, the former is a functional statement about price, right.
And the latter is an aspirational statement about quality and about the hand and mind of the maker who is bringing the product to us.