No, this isn’t a campaign to promote technical education. ‘Pick a box’ is our advice to marketing managers. Choose that one box in the minds of your customers and applicants that you can fill with your brand. And stay true to that choice. Do everything you can to live up to that claim.
What is the first thing your customers think of when they hear your company name?
Whatever the answer may be, it is rarely a collection of different terms. That’s because ‘The Consumer’ puts your company in a box. In a clearly defined box in his or her head. Because it helps them organize reality. To get a grip on the abundance that comes their way.
One of the most important decisions you can make as a marketing manager is which box your company can fill. That ‘can’ is there for a reason. You must be able to deliver on the claim you make. It has to feel logical. For you as a brand and for your customer. You don’t just choose—you make explicit what is in your company’s DNA.
Take the vehicle brand Volvo, for example. They choose the ‘Safety’ box. Regardless of new model launches, across different countries, that is the nail the Swedish brand has been hitting for years. Volvo IS safety. Their identity, their products, and their marketing. That is how they differentiate themselves and appeal to a specific target audience. And from a marketing standpoint, it makes it easier to estimate what that audience wants to see, hear, and feel.
That ‘identity’ provides a foundation for how their brand looks. It gives direction for the use of color and language.
A Volvo is more likely to feature understated colors, not loud ‘in your face’ combinations. It even provides a guide for something as simple as the salutation in an email.
A second example. A bit closer to home. We park our Volvo in the parking lot of the local Colruyt. What do we see when we get out? Nothing spectacular. A no-frills parking lot, simple shopping carts, and a primarily functional building. And for Colruyt, that is perfect.
As a brand, Colruyt is a great example of how you consistently carry that box in the consumer’s mind through to your customer contact and store experience.
All Colruyt branches look exactly the same inside: a store stripped of all the bells and whistles. All the frills have had to make way for the brand promise. That is perfectly in line with what Colruyt promises: ‘the lowest price.’ That’s it.
You don’t go to Colruyt for the experience. You don’t expect exotic brands or 24 different types of tapenade.
Colruyt targets price-conscious customers. And they don’t care that Colruyt keeps its frozen products in those closed freezers instead of those freezers with glass doors where everything is neatly displayed. They accept that the aisles are sometimes on the narrow side. Or that you feel like you’re in Siberia for a moment when you walk into the fruit and vegetable department. It is clear that everything fits into that one promise: ‘the lowest price, for every product, at every moment’.
So, dear marketing manager, which box have you chosen? Is that also the box your customer sees you in?
Is that box the starting point for everything you do in your marketing? And how consistently do you apply it? Because this is what gives concrete meaning to what would otherwise remain buzzwords like ‘authenticity’ and ‘total experience’.