Congratulations! You’ve just completed your brand positioning, and it’s wonderful. After many weeks (or likely months) and hundreds of man hours, the wording has been expertly selected and refined to effectively communicate your brand’s unique benefit(s), it’s been validated with your targeted customers, and the result is a thing of beauty.
But now someone at your agency, or worse within your own organization, tells you that it’s kind of hard to remember. They want you to develop a short moniker to help the troops understand the essence of what you hope to communicate, but without having them have to work too hard to decipher. You know what I mean, s/he wants a catchphrase like, “confident control” or “best balanced” to throw around at the launch readiness review or sales meetings, because let’s face it, the catchphrase is just easier than reciting that whole mess of words that your team created.
So, what’s the harm really? It would make it easier for everyone to remember and rally around. It can’t hurt, right? WRONG . . .
A catchphrase can make it easier for team members to remember, but it will also likely turn your pièce de résistance into strategic “chicken nuggets”. You know what I mean… chicken nuggets may be appetizing to the unrefined palette, but we all know that they are over-processed and just not as good for you as the real thing.
In addition, oversimplifying the complex ideas and phrasing encompassed in the actual brand positioning will ultimately lead to them losing their meaning and value.
So, when you get this call, stand your ground and explain the rationale for the articulation of the positioning that captivated your customers. Don’t let the desire for a simple catchphrase turn your chicken cordon bleu into chicken nuggets.
