Brand Positioning in China

What a project on brand positioning in China may entail

• Consumer research and sentiment analysis to understand consumer receptivity and perception
• Market sizing and China market entry analysis to understand your brand capabilities in China
• Benchmark to understand your brand positioning compared to that of your competitors
• The potential assessment of your vision, tagline, and statement according to the previous steps
• The development of your message house to ensure image continuity along with the deployment of your services

Brand positioning in China – crafting your China’s tailored message

Brands are viewed as the primary enduring asset of a company, outlasting the company’s specific products and facilities. In particular, in China, consumers rely much on Brand value and awareness to purchase.

Brand positioning is defined as the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. A proper brand positioning in China will lead your company to build a prestigious and high qualitative image that can help you overtake local brands and gain a competitive edge over foreign competitors.

Developing a brand positioning in China, therefore, involves a comprehensive understanding of your targeted Chinese consumers, as well as your local and foreign competitors’ positioning on the Chinese market.

To help you create and grow your brand image in China, we are committed to leverage data-driven tools to deliver actionable recommendations.

How Daxue Consulting could help you to find a powerful brand positioning in China– three steps

Step 1: We analyze your targeted market in China

Understand what your Chinese consumers want

Brand awareness in China greatly influences consumers purchasing behaviors. By assessing the different Chinese cultural environments to learn and understand customers’ values, motives, and practices, our research teams will discover elusive trends that inform on insights to build your brand image in China.

To do so, we leverage consumer research using the following methods:

• Consumer panel in China
• Market survey
• Ethnographic research
• Sentiment analysis and social listening

Understand your brand capabilities on the Chinese market

To formulate a statement that can be delivered by your company, it is of vital importance to assess what are your capabilities on the Chinese market. To sit in the mind of your Chinese consumers, the brand message needs to highlight the rationale about why they should choose your brand. Thus, it is essential to define or redefine what are the promises and strengths of your brand in the Chinese market.

To do so, we leverage  market research and China market entry study, using the following methods:

Market sizing

Market potential in China

Feasibility study

Understand how each local or foreign competitor is positioning its brand in China

To build a unique positioning that stands out from the competition, it is essential to understand the chessboard of other brands on the Chinese market and their respective positioning. In China more than elsewhere, brands that position themselves in the same market segment are considered by consumers to be unique according to the message they convey. Thus, understanding the positioning of its competitors not only makes it stand out, but also captures the messages that appeal to Chinese consumers.

To do so, we leverage market analysis in China through the following methods:

• Competitive benchmarking
• Market report

Daxue Consulting’s data and fact-driven methods to assess the potential of your brand image in China

Step 2:  Assessing the potential of your brand image in China

Brands often come to China with their own brand message and identity. In this regard, our goal is to make sure that your brand message is fully aligned with your Chinese targeted market. By combining the review of your brand image and the analysis of your targeted market, we will be in measure to carry on the potential evaluation of your brand awareness in China.

Usually, three critical statements convey your brand message across the internal and external channels:

The vision (or mission)

A vision is a description that informs and inspires the company from within. It is a statement that gives meaning to employees about the how and why of your business. While the vision can be shared with the customers, the main objective of corporate vision is to guide the internal operations of the company. The corporate vision is often designed in collaboration with the top decision-makers of the brand.

The tagline

The tagline acts as a clever punchline to create a memorable brand image. Short and powerful, this is by what your customers would recognize you first. Widely spread in marketing and communication campaign, the tagline can often change over the years with the advent of new campaigns. The ultimate goal of the tagline is customer-to-brand association and memorability.

The statement (or brand line)

The statement should be a concise sentence to describe what your brand does in the context of a goal differentiation. However, it should be long enough to convey emotion and distinguish what the company offers.

Once your targeted market in China has been analyzed in step 1, Daxue Consulting assesses if your positioning statement fully aligns with your targeted Chinese market. According to our market analysis, your vision, tagline, and statement in China should:

• Resonate with your Chinese consumers
• Be delivered in China by your company (capabilities)
• Be different from your local and foreign competitors

Once your positioning potential in China has been ascertained, the next step is to make sure that your marketing and communication functions will convey it, according to the data previously collected.

Important notice: Daxue’s teams are fully aware that the foundation of your brand are intangible assets, which will not necessarily change because of the Chinese market. Therefore, the goal is to identify the elements of your image that have the most impact on Chinese consumers market, in order to accentuate them. To better understand how to emphasize these key elements, we are building a house message.

Step 3: Crafting your message house to deliver your China marketing message

Message houses are a simple but effective tool to ensure that your teams keep consistency in their China marketing message across different channels.

The messaging house is a format used to develop your China marketing message by focusing on your vision, as well as the core message and the proof points that support them. Building up a message house makes it easier for all marketing functions to stay on track when developing marketing materials, as it provides the underlying construct for all messaging about your product or service.

Our message house:

While the roof of the message house represents intangible statements that build your brand, the core messages and their proof points can be modified to adapt to the Chinese market.

According to our branding consultant Remi Blanchard, the foundations of a brand entering the Chinese are not expected to a radical change:

“All the upstream market analysis will identify which brand messages will most appeal to Chinese consumers. Then it will be necessary to accentuate these messages and the proof points which support them. By doing this, we maintain the brand foundations and image, while making it accessible and attractive to the Chinese market.”

Part of our brand positioning services, we identify the proof points and the core messages that will have the best resonance on the Chinese market. In doing so, we build a message house that fully transposes your vision, supporting it to penetrate your targeted market in China.

Additional step: Market your brand image in China

Your China marketing message goes hand in hand with your brand positioning in China. If the message house is a useful tool for your Chinese operations to follow your umbrella vision, it does not say more about how to market your brand image in China.

Strengthening one’s brand image requires acutely targeted communication campaigns and the need to pick the right channels to deliver your China marketing message.  Daxue Consulting’s marketing strategy in China helps you get the best insights to market your brand image in China.

See also:

Brand naming in China

Brand equity in China

Brand health check in China