If consumers are interested in a product category, they usually have some idea of which brands they consider best in class. And when they think about a particular brand, they often ask themselves: What is this brand really good at?

Brand Competence defines the field in which a brand wants to be seen as especially strong and competent. It helps explain why customers can trust the brand to deliver its promise. This authority may come from the brand’s product focus, its specific uses, or the competencies for which the brand wants to be known.

Brand Competence can be product-focused when the brand is especially good at a specific product category, material, technique, or craft. For instance, a brand may be an expert in umbrellas, skincare formulas, or personalized travel planning.

Brand Competence can also be benefit-focused when the brand is especially good at solving a specific customer problem or creating a specific customer benefit. For instance, a brand may be an expert in helping people stay dry in an elegant way, calming sensitive skin, making travel effortless, improving sleep, or making small spaces feel beautiful.

If consumers consider buying from a brand, they usually evaluate whether the brand has the qualities they are looking for in the category. They may ask themselves: Is this brand high-quality, reliable, innovative, good value for money, friendly, or easy to use?

Functional Benefits define the characteristics that customers should associate with a brand within a category. They shape how customers evaluate the brand and play a key role in purchase decisions. These qualities guide what the brand must deliver consistently in its products, services, and customer touchpoints.

These qualities can include functional attributes and benefits, such as durability, comfort, performance, or convenience. They can also be emotional or experiential, such as elegance, exclusivity, creativity, simplicity, warmth, or trustworthiness.

To decide which product-related associations should be linked to a brand, it is important to consider: (1) that they should reflect the criteria target customers use to evaluate products in the category, often around three to five key factors, and (2) the product characteristics of competing brands. In this way, Functional Benefits provide the basis for brand positioning.

While Functional Benefits describe the set of qualities the brand wants to be associated with, the Key Differentiator captures the most important quality that makes the brand stand out from competitors. It is the main reason why customers should choose this brand over others.

The Key Differentiator can also be based on a specific combination of qualities. For example, an umbrella brand may want to be known for being durable, elegant, compact, and easy to repair. Its Key Differentiator could combine being durable and elegant as the main reason to choose the brand: storm-resistant umbrellas that still look refined for formal city life.

The Key Differentiator can also include the way a quality is delivered or made accessible. For example, if convenience is the leading quality, the Key Differentiator could be: skincare consultation from home, without visiting a clinic. In this case, the brand defines a specific form of convenience that matters to customers.

This brand identity element refers to the people the brand primarily wants to attract. It describes whose needs, preferences, purchase criteria, and life situation the brand must understand.

An important success factor is to focus on a clearly defined customer segment or niche. One useful shortcut is to start with established consumer archetypes or well-known lifestyle types, such as LOHAS consumers, cultural creatives, slow-living consumers, or digital nomads. Alternatively, the brand can define its own brand-specific niche, such as solo female travelers or health-conscious food lovers. Rather than addressing a vague and faceless audience, it is advisable to build the brand with a concrete customer persona in mind.

This does not mean that only these people can buy the brand. It means that the brand is designed with this group especially clearly in mind. Defining the Key Customer helps the brand make better decisions about its product offering, communication, sales channels, and customer experience.

When people are asked what they think about a brand, they usually describe what they know about its products and story, but often also describe the kind of customer they think buys it. Ask consumers familiar with a brand, “Who do you think buys it?”, and they often have a vivid idea in mind. What they describe is the brand’s Prototypical User image: consumers’ perception of the typical people the brand seems to attract or address.

Before buying from a brand, consumers often consciously or unconsciously ask themselves this question and consider whether they identify with the user image. The answer can strongly influence purchase decisions. If the image feels attractive or aspirational, it can make the brand more desirable; if it feels wrong or unattractive, it can become a barrier to purchase. This is why brand managers care about shaping this perception.

Accordingly, as a brand identity element, the Prototypical User describes the typical users that brand managers want customers to imagine when they think of the brand. In reality, a brand’s actual customers are often not the same as the typical users the brand wants people to imagine. Regardless of who buys their products, many fashion brands seek to be associated with young and stylish consumers.

Brand managers therefore try to shape this image through brand communication. Porsche, for example, often portrays young, dynamic, and attractive drivers in its advertising, although many of its actual customers are much older. This portrayed user image is not simply a mirror of the actual customer base. It represents the ideal social self of the brand’s core target customers: the kind of person they aspire to be, thereby making the brand more desirable.

When people put on Adidas clothes at the gym, they may already feel more sporty. When doing yoga, however, Adidas may not feel quite right. Wearing Lululemon, by contrast, may feel more aligned with being a real yogi and closer to a more spiritual lifestyle.

Accordingly, the Brand-related Self describes what the brand wants customers to feel and believe they can become when using the brand or its products. Brands can evoke specific emotions, such as BMW making drivers experience driving pleasure or Magnum ice cream making customers feel indulged. Brands can also define how they want people to see themselves through the brand, such as Dove wanting customers to feel more beautiful and self-confident when using its products.

This element is closely related to consumers’ identity and self-expression. When designing the Brand-related Self, brands also consider the self-image that their customers want to confirm, build, or express. When a brand is connected to its customers’ life goals and desired self, customers can use the brand as a means to achieve a larger personal goal, feel that they are living their desired lifestyle, or move closer to the person they want to be. In this way, the Brand-related Self can help a brand play a meaningful role in customers’ lives and build closer relationships with them.

This element defines the social world the brand wants to create around itself: “What group, scene, or movement should customers feel connected to through the brand?” A Brand Community is the social group a brand seeks to build around itself, or an existing group it seeks to join. It helps customers feel they are not simply buying a product, but becoming part of a group of like-minded people who share similar worldviews, interests, activities, or aspirations.

Some brand communities are highly social. The Harley Owners Group is a typical example: members ride together, build one-to-one relationships, and are connected by freedom, rebellion, road culture, and shared rituals.

Other brand communities are more mental or imagined. Many Apple users, especially in the company’s early days, had only loose social interaction with one another, but still felt part of a wider community of cool, creative people who thought differently. This type of mental community can still give customers a sense of belonging and make them feel part of something larger, almost like a movement.

At the same time, this opens the door for almost any brand to build or join at least a mental community. In this way, community helps the brand become socially meaningful and gives customers another reason to engage with the brand: the desire to feel connected with others.

Brand Culture describes the cultural foundations that a brand draws from. It moves the brand beyond mere functional benefits and gives it symbolic meaning by connecting it to specific cultural facets – such as a country, region, city, social class, subculture, tradition, or way of thinking. These cultural references can inspire the brand, give it depth, and become an important source of its identity and differentiation.

People define themselves not only as individuals, but also through the groups and cultures to which they belong or aspire to belong. These cultural worlds carry particular values and lifestyles from which brands can draw meaning. By connecting themselves to particular cultural groups, brands can take on some of their meaning and appeal to customers who feel that the brand fits who they are or who they would like to become. For example, WeSC is rooted in skateboarding culture. Ralph Lauren is not rooted only in broad American culture; what makes the brand more specific is that it draws particularly from the lifestyle and aesthetics of Boston high society. The idea is to connect the brand to a specific cultural facet that gives it a richer and more distinctive meaning.

Another important part of Brand Culture is the brand’s value system. This may consist of around three to five core brand values. Beyond listing core values, brands should consider whether they can draw from a deeper philosophy, spiritual tradition, or artistic movement that shapes the brand’s values and how it sees the world. For instance, Shamballa Jewelry combines Nordic mythology with Buddhism in its brand philosophy, which is reflected in the symbols used in its jewelry design and communication. This shows how combining different cultural sources can become a form of cultural innovation that helps create a unique brand.

Content is king: brands constantly need relevant content for their digital channels. However, this content should not be limited to new products or store openings. Such news alone rarely attracts strong attention. Customers engage with a brand not only because of its products, but also because the brand has something interesting to say. When content offers value in its own right, it can attract customers first and support product sales later.

The Brand Theme refers to the overarching thematic idea that gives the brand’s content, expression, and touchpoints a coherent direction over time. A strong Brand Theme helps the brand avoid random content and create repeatable formats. It answers the question: What should the brand keep talking about, showing, or teaching beyond its products? This can include editorial themes, such as beauty education at Lancôme, fashion guidance at Oscar de la Renta, or how to create better action videos at GoPro.

Some brands define broad narrative themes, such as travel at Louis Vuitton, love at Tiffany, or cabaret at Christian Louboutin. They can then translate these into more specific editorial themes. For Louis Vuitton, for example, a possible editorial translation of the broader “travel” theme could be: “How to experience new places through the eyes of creative insiders.” Both types of themes can also inspire the design of marketing-mix instruments such as websites, advertisements, events, and stores.

A large part of brand meaning can come from the human characteristics associated with a brand. The brand can be understood as having its own “self”: a mental picture of what kind of person it would be if it were human. It can have a strong impact on purchase decisions, because consumers compare this brand self with their own ideal self: the closer the match, the more desirable the brand becomes. For this reason, Brand Personality is another major source of brand meaning and differentiation. At the same time, it helps humanize the brand and can raise brand-customer relationships to another, more personal level.

Brand Persona covers the human characteristics of the brand. In its basic form, it includes a few personality traits, such as decent, cheerful, or honest. In a more detailed and metaphorical form, it creates a vivid picture of the brand as if it were a person. Thinking of the brand as a real person can help guide all kinds of branding decisions, such as the design of a website, store, or advertisement. A useful question for developing a Brand Persona is: How should people imagine the brand as a person?

The Brand Persona should be described in enough detail to create a vivid mental picture of the kind of person the brand is meant to represent. This may include not only personality traits, but also demographic characteristics or lifestyle preferences. Another good starting point is to ask what role models inspire the brand, such as an artist, philosopher, or a person the brand team personally knows.

For example, Coco Chanel still lives on as a kind of guiding spirit within the company. When designing a new product or store, the brand team would typically ask: How would Coco Chanel do it today? Other brands use one or several role models as sources of inspiration for the Brand Persona. For instance, the Swedish fashion label House of Dagmar, founded by three sisters, draws much of its inspiration from their grandmother, after whom the brand was named.

The people behind a brand often matter to consumers. When asked what they know about a brand, consumers often mention people-related aspects, such as the brand’s founders, owners, managers, designers, or other company representatives. Accordingly, Brand Face is about the real people who represent a brand, especially from within the company.

Giving a brand a face is not new. It reflects a basic human desire to know who to interact with, which is why brands were already doing this more than a hundred years ago. Thierry Hermès, for example, became renowned among European royalty for his horse harnesses and vouched for the quality of his products with his own name. In this way, giving a brand a face turns it into a more human-like relationship partner. It can help build trust, customer goodwill, and a sense of closeness.

Today, this approach remains effective. Typical Brand Faces include founders, CEOs, artistic directors, and, increasingly, human-like fictional characters. Entrepreneurs such as Brunello Cucinelli, fashion designers such as Jacquemus, and star chefs like Alain Ducasse show how visible individuals can become the face of a business and develop into personal brands. Even brands that are not naturally built around a key individual should consider who inside the company could become a credible human face for the brand, and cultivate at least one strong personal brand.

For many consumers, it also makes a difference who owns or runs a business. Beyond specific individuals, Brand Face can therefore also include what kind of people stand behind the brand, for example whether it is family-run, founder-led, women-owned, or minority-owned. This can add meaning and value because, for many consumers, knowing who is behind a brand can make a real difference.