Brand Wheel as a Way to Strengthen Your Market Position

The modern market is characterized by fairly high levels of competition in various niches. It is difficult to find at least one area in which you would not have competitors literally breathing down your neck. And here, every business is faced with the need to find solutions that would help distinguish its products from analogues, increase recognition, loyalty from the target audience, and ensure a decent reputation. One of the best solutions in this case is branding. Here we are talking about a set of activities aimed at forming a certain idea of the company among the target audience, as well as the goods and services that are supplied to the market.

Branding mostly includes the development of a name, logo, and personal style. This also includes the creation of a corporate identity and the so-called brand voice. The work ahead is quite complex and large-scale, but at the same time they have a truly positive impact on the formation of the company in the market. At the same time, any strong brand has its own secret. And it lies in the high emotional attachment of buyers. This is what solves all the above problems, promotes repeat orders, positive feedback, good recommendations, etc.

And now a completely natural question arises: where to start all this work. We will dwell on one of these points in more detail today. In particular, we will talk about what a brand wheel is and why a modern business needs it. We will tell you how it is used in marketing, what it consists of. We will also provide recommendations that will allow you to create a brand wheel yourself. So, first things first.

What is a brand wheel?

A brand wheel is a special model that is used to determine the essence of a company based on its characteristics, specifics, and features. With its help, consumers will be able to understand what benefit they receive from cooperation, evaluate its advantages, and make sure that the choice made was really correct. The essence of the model itself is to divide the idea of a brand into 5 separate components that complement each other. In particular, we are talking about the following:

1. Attributes. This includes all the obvious and non-obvious characteristics of the product and the company itself. That is, this is what will be characteristic of all products, and the brand itself as a whole.
2. Advantages. This is already a direct result of the brand's work on the market, that is, the effect that each client of the company receives.
3. Values. These are emotions, sensations that will arise in the audience interacting with your products.
4. Individuality. Here, the business is attributed with human characteristics. This is what will distinguish it from competitors. This is a kind of highlight, characteristic of a particular company.
5. Essence. The key idea that will be seen in absolutely all products produced by the company, uniting them all, thereby indicating identity, uniqueness. That is, this is what makes the brand what it is.

We will talk in detail about how to define all these components of the brand wheel within your business later. Now we will show why it is so important to use this technique in marketing and who will benefit from it.

Who should use the brand wheel and for what purpose

Before moving on to the direct creation of the layout, it is important to understand why your business needs a brand wheel. Only by realizing the need for its creation, you will be able to assess the current situation as comprehensively as possible and draw up the most correct plan for implementing the idea.

If you have been working in the market for several days, you have probably noticed how difficult it is to attract the attention of the audience in modern conditions, when the market is literally overflowing with similar goods and services. Without some unique and striking difference, it is extremely difficult to attract the attention of potential buyers. This is why the brand wheel is actively used in marketing. It can solve this problem by revealing to the audience the essence of the brand and all the benefits that people will receive from interacting with the business.

You probably already know that Nike positions itself as a leader in innovation and inspiration. Disney is known all over the world as the creator of exciting family entertainment. Volvo is associated with unrivaled road safety. But it is important not to confuse the essence of the brand and its slogan. It is not displayed on posters, does not sound in advertising. But it will be the basis for developing a general strategy for the development and promotion of the product.

The brand wheel itself and, accordingly, its essence, began to be used by marketers in 1995. It was with its help that the famous advertising agency Bates Worldwide Agency began to create unique selling propositions for brands. Experts decided to highlight one key reason for each individual company that would encourage the audience to choose this particular product. Today, the essence of the brand wheel has remained the same, although it has expanded somewhat. It already uses a combination of different values, distinctive features, emotional and visual indicators. That is, here we are talking about creating a certain brand image, how consumers perceive it and its products.

A strong brand is formed on these principles. It is quite reasonable to assume that if a person knows a company, if he follows its development, product updates, new products, if he recommends its products to friends and acquaintances, then the business has managed to present itself as correctly as possible, to form the most positive images and associations around its name. And all this is not an accident, but the result of very thoughtful and comprehensive work of specialists who work on forming the brand image.

So, using the brand wheel in marketing can solve a number of key tasks facing businesses. In particular, we are talking about achieving the following goals:

• Defining the essence of the company. This is what allows us to understand what the brand is, what values and characteristics it operates on, how it differs from its closest competitors, and what unusual, useful, and even valuable things it is ready to offer the consumer market.
• Increasing loyalty from the target audience. When a company realizes the importance of its presence in the market, understands what benefits it provides to consumers, and understands the competitive advantages of its product, communication with customers will be more effective. Such that it will ensure an emotional connection that will definitely have a positive effect on loyalty in the future, increase the customer's lifetime value, and also become a guarantee of stable and regular purchases.
• Developing effective marketing campaigns. Using the brand wheel in marketing will allow you to understand what elements the business is built on as a whole. These are the values that should form the basis of marketing strategies that will purposefully convey important information about the company's work to the audience. That is, this way you will be able to create advertisements that will reflect the brand's individuality and its key values.
• Simplification of internal communications. The brand wheel will be useful not only when interacting with the target audience, but also at the stage of organizing effective interaction between employees within the company. Each of your specialists, from the top manager to the front staff, will understand how exactly they should present your brand and, based on this, choose the most effective actions and strategies in general.
• Long-term planning. If you understand all the components of the brand, you will be able to plan its subsequent development with high accuracy, even for a fairly long term. And here we are not only talking about marketing campaigns, but also about the business strategy itself, which can become the basis for effective and stable brand development, its establishment in the market.

If all these tasks are relevant now for your business, then it's time to think about developing your own brand wheel.

Business that should create a brand wheel

But still, before launching large-scale work, you need to think not only about why you need a brand wheel, but also understand that it is necessary for your business. By and large, absolutely any business that would like to ensure stable and effective development in the market needs to think about creating it. In particular, the following specialists use it in practice:

1. Business owners. Here the wheel will help you understand how your brand is perceived by the audience as a whole, see the strengths and weaknesses with outside eyes.
2. Company employees. For the well-coordinated work of specialists, it is important that each individual department has a clear understanding of the brand's goals. This is what will ensure improved customer service, ensure faster order processing, and increase audience loyalty.
3. Designers. Today, the visual perception of websites, and for the external design of a business in general, plays a key role for a modern audience. Understanding the values of your brand, a designer will be able to display it as effectively and correctly as possible, which in itself will ensure a more positive perception, emphasize respectability, and reliability.
4. Copywriters. To prepare a text description of your brand, it is important to understand the very essence of the company, know its unique selling proposition (USP). This is the only way to convey important information about the company to the audience, highlight its strengths, and point out the benefits that a person will receive from cooperation. We have already mentioned above that it is the brand wheel that will help create a truly high-quality USP.
5. Strategists, Internet marketers. Having a well-written brand wheel, these specialists will be able to develop truly effective campaigns that allow you to promote brands, products, services on the market, getting good results within a fairly limited budget. The whole secret is that such strategies will be built on truly reliable and key information about the business.

With a high degree of probability, you also found yourself in all this. And this means that it is time to move directly to creating a brand wheel.

Creating a brand wheel yourself

To create a brand wheel, you need to write down all the key attributes of the company, which we talked about at the very beginning. Here we need to take into account the values and advantages that are specific to a particular organization. The work ahead is truly large-scale, but if you understand how to implement everything as correctly as possible, then in principle there should be no difficulties with this. Therefore, now we will consider all 5 key components in maximum detail.

Defining brand attributes

By such a concept as attributes, we will mean all the superficial facts about the company. That is, this will be what not only you, as a person directly related to the business, but also everyone around you see. These are facts that are very easy to verify, thereby making sure of their truthfulness or, conversely, unreliability. Imagine that you are talking not about a company, but about some person you know well. How will you describe him? Surely you will say what this person’s name is, how old he is, where he studied, where he works, whether he has a family. You will also be able to highlight his special personal qualities, indicate the presence of certain knowledge and skills. And anyone who also knows this person will be able to confirm the veracity of your words.

You should do the same when compiling brand attributes. You just need to structure all the information that is freely available about your brand. The easiest way to do this is to go to the main page of the company's official website or to the "About Us" section. And also try to describe your brand using adjectives. Write down all the words on paper, and then analyze them. If you see something in this list that has a negative context, then you should not satisfy them. Just write such words on a separate page. Later, you can think about how to minimize this negativity or try to extract business benefits from it.

But when defining brand attributes, you must be extremely objective and honest with yourself. Otherwise, you simply will not be able to convey false information to the audience. She simply won't perceive them the way you'd like: remember, we're talking about open information that can be easily verified. If your deception is discovered, then, of course, no trust will be gained.

Now that you have assessed, so to speak, yourself, you can move on to your target audience. It is important to understand who exactly your client is. Try to describe him or her using adjectives. Who is he or she? A person aged 35-45 in a business suit, a young mother, or maybe a buzzer with a vape or a pensioner growing cucumbers and tomatoes in the country. All this information will allow you to create a special brand intelligence map, which will contain information about the needs of the audience, its interests, and pain points. Thanks to this, you will be able to present your brand in the most favorable light, present it in such a way that it meets consumer demands. In any case, at the output you should get a portrait containing the following information about the client:

• gender;
• place of residence;
• age;
• profession;
• interests and hobbies;
• marital status;
• income level.

To get a good result at the output and really honestly and correctly present your brand, use analogies. Compare the company with what is close and familiar to you. Let's say you supply home textiles to the market. What do you associate yourself with? Most likely with a soft, cozy blanket, hinting at comfort and coziness in the house. If you sell luxury furniture, then most likely the focus should not be on home comfort, but on something exclusive, bright, luxurious, presentable, literally screaming about its high cost. Perhaps in this case, you will compare yourself to an elegant designer evening dress from a couturier.

Of course, here you should pay attention to how competitors present themselves, but do not associate yourself with them too much. On the contrary, you should find out how your company differs from theirs. What you can do better, why people should come to you. This is what will allow you to identify the unique advantages and features of your brand and then focus on them. Perhaps you use only environmentally friendly components in your products or rely on more individual, professional customer service.

In any case, the attributes in the brand wheel are about emotions. This is what you feel when you talk about your company and what feelings you want to evoke in the audience. Thus, Bosch household appliances are associated with impeccable German quality, high technology, reliability and durability. Nestle is tasty, sweet and safe.

A good help at this stage can be the launch of surveys among clients and customers. Ask them to describe the emotions that arise when using your products or services, as well as from interaction with the brand as a whole. This is what will allow you to look at yourself through someone else's eyes, and more objectively. As a result, you will be able to determine the key attributes that will become the first component of your brand wheel. This will be a kind of its outer shell. Subsequently, they should be used in developing the visual design of the company and website, choosing the brand voice and other aspects that will present you on the market.

Highlighting the advantages of the brand

The second stage of forming a brand wheel is identifying its key advantages. But here we are talking not so much about how exactly your company differs from its analogues, but directly about the benefits for the consumer. That is, it is important to indicate what exactly the client will receive from interacting with your business. First of all, you need to focus on the interests of the target audience. That is, it is important to understand what you can give to this or that person depending on their needs. A compiled portrait of the target audience will provide you with significant assistance at this stage. It is advisable to develop it as early as possible, literally in parallel with the launch of your business. This way you will understand what your buyer expects and, accordingly, provide it to him.

You can highlight the advantages of your brand if you answer 2 key questions:

1. Why does this or that person interact with your brand? That is, it is important to understand what problems, questions, pains he is trying to solve by interacting with you.
2. What can your product or service give to such an audience? Here it is important to focus on distinctive features, that is, on what you have, but what your closest competitors do not have.

Along with other advantages, it is also important not to miss the less obvious points. Let's say you supply baby food products to the market. It is clear that the main purpose of your product will be to feed babies. But it is clear that most parents are also concerned about the safety of such products, relying on organic origin, the absence of preservatives and other components that can negatively affect the health of the child. If you offer exactly this kind of baby food, then be sure to note these points in the advantages. That is, by doing so, you will let consumers understand that you are pursuing the goal not only to feed the baby, but also care about their health, well-being, etc.

Defining the core values of the brand

The third, extremely important component of the brand wheel is its values. That is, what will help not only attract attention to your product, but literally “force” audience to love it, to become an ardent fan and connoisseur. It is important to form the message that you want to send to the consumer.

You have probably already noticed that companies that have been successfully operating in the market for a long time try to advertise their own values as much as possible, publish them on websites, make posts about them on social networks and more. So, if we talk about the Puma brand, then everything here revolves around its key value “Forever Faster”, that is, “Always faster”. To achieve such values, the company relies on innovation and social responsibility. It constantly strives for sustainable development, tries to combine modern style and unrivaled sports functionality. So, if we talk further about the Puma brand, then we can highlight its following values:

• Speed. This is the idea that is reflected even in the brand logo.
• Determination. This is what helps to overcome difficulties and move confidently forward towards the intended goal, despite the surrounding challenges.
• Confidence. The manufacturer strives to ensure that every buyer of clothes, shoes, accessories feels as confident as possible, regardless of whether he is currently running a marathon, conquering a mountain peak, or just walking in the park with children or a dog.
• Optimism. Here, the emphasis is on a positive outlook on the world around us, the belief that every day gradually brings us closer to achieving maximum results.

To implement such values, Puma relies on a combination of sports aesthetics and fashion trends. The manufacturer is constantly developing advanced technological materials, improving the quality and functionality of its products. The values are also reflected in an extremely wide range of products, covering absolutely all categories of consumers. The brand's arsenal includes many solutions for any kind of sport and for everyday life, both active and simply comfortable. Social responsibility here is manifested in the desire for environmental friendliness, the use of advanced materials, and the support of various projects.

Now that you see an example of the Puma brand values, you can probably say something similar about your own company.

Defining brand personality

Personality is another criterion in your brand wheel. We can say that these are some kind of human characteristics that can be attributed to your company. We would like to draw attention to the fact that, along with other indicators that we discussed above, personality can change over time. And here we see another analogy with a person's character. It can change depending on the current situation, current trends. As an example, we can name the Yves Saint Laurent brand. Initially, it positioned itself as a manufacturer of luxury clothing, accessories, cosmetics, shoes, perfumes. Its products attracted attention with their elegance, sophistication, refinement, and easily recognizable style. But closer to the 2000s, a rebellious spirit emerged here, and classics and avant-garde began to combine. The brand changed its original name, significantly simplified the logo, and began to focus, among other things, on youth, thereby expanding the reach of the target audience.

That is, you need to be prepared for the fact that the individuality of your brand may change over time, and you will have to periodically review it, make certain adjustments, for example, to the logo, visual style, design and packaging of products, the introduction of characters, etc. But what should remain unchanged is the ability to evoke reverse emotional reactions in consumers. The fact is that the audience is more positive about those brands with which it will have similar personalities and characters. So, today we can distinguish several groups of brand personalities associated with certain characteristics:

• sincere: kindness, focus on family values, attention to detail;
• exciting: energy, carelessness, youth;
• competent: success, solidity, influence, efficiency, leadership;
• tough: strength, reliability, confidence, brutality, sportiness;
• refined: sophistication, elegance, pretentiousness, prestige.

That is, it is important for you to understand what category you classify your brand into. Just think about what target buyer you are focusing on, what characteristics will be relevant for him. Based on this, you can easily choose your own personality. It is important here that the personality type of your brand matches the target audience. And if your regular customer is going to “grow up”, then you will need to become older along with him, or vice versa, “get younger”, if you decide to win the attention of young people as well.

Defining the essence of the brand

The last step that you will need to implement when creating your own brand wheel is to define its essence. Most of it literally fits into a couple of words, but they will play a key role in your branding. For example, the Puma brand will say “Always faster”, for Nike it is “Innovation and inspiration”, for Volvo it is “Safety”. But here it is important to understand that the essence is not just words on a banner, this is not ordinary marketing. This is what will permeate the work of your company completely. This is what will have a key influence on the adoption of certain production decisions aimed at increasing the value of the product for the audience, improving its technology and functionality. That is, it is important for you not only to come up with a few impressive words, but also to follow them, really find your essence and try to convey it to the target audience.

And the essence is what will make the audience love your brand, become a regular buyer of its goods or services, recommend them to friends and more. And as soon as you can define it, your marketing will become more effective. It will receive the benchmark that will be used at absolutely all stages of promotion on the market. And it is the essence that will help users attribute human traits and character to your company. It is this that will allow you to turn a faceless brand into a company that will become extremely recognizable on the market literally by the logo, the external design of a particular product, a couple of words in the description.

The essence will help gain trust among the target audience, will evoke exclusively positive emotions and a desire to return with orders again and again. But the process of definition is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. You may have to experiment a little, launch several options, analyze what effect each of them will have on the audience.

Also, for the effective development of the company in the market, we suggest studying the material «4D branding: what it is and what role it plays in marketing».

And then what?

By and large, at this stage, all the work on creating a brand wheel is completed: you have written down and visualized all 5 main criteria. Now you have a set of key characteristics that reflect the specifics of your company's work, allow the audience to better understand you and evaluate the benefits for themselves, build an emotional connection. However, to ensure that your brand wheel works effectively, there are still 2 more steps that need to be implemented:

1. Visualize. Here we are talking about lining up all the characteristics and components we talked about above in the right order and literally documenting them. So, the central element of any wheel will be the essence of the brand. Around it is the individuality, then the value, and then the advantages. And the outer layer is the attributes. This arrangement is provided for a reason, because the basis of the brand wheel should be only 1-2 keywords, and all the other layers literally reveal their essence, expand it.
2. Regular analysis and making the necessary adjustments. Here we are talking about the importance of checking the effectiveness of your brand wheel. That is, you need to analyze whether it works correctly, how well the audience was able to understand your message, what effect was achieved in the end. If you notice certain inconsistencies, lack of logical connection between categories, inconsistency with the brand development strategy you have chosen, you will need to make adjustments.

Please note: if you want to change something during your brand's work on the market, for example, expand the target audience or refocus on other buyers, launch a new product line, you will need to review the brand wheel and also adjust it. That is, it is important to ensure that it always remains relevant, because this is the basis of effective marketing campaigns.

Example of a brand wheel

To help you form a truly complete and comprehensive picture of what a brand wheel should be, we will give an example. We will take the Nestle company as a basis. So, the key categories here will be as follows:

1. Attributes. This is a unique logo with a bird's nest, emphasizing the brand's care for its consumers. And also this is a gentle and calm tone in communication, causing an association with home comfort, coziness. These are also the stories that Nestle tells in its advertising and in any other interaction with the audience, thereby strengthening the emotional connection with the consumer. But the packaging helps to complement the overall image and make any product of the Nestle brand recognizable. In a few words, the attributes will be as follows: care, comfort, warmth, coziness, long-term history, high quality, availability to a wide audience.
2. Advantages. Due to its increased reliability and care for the audience, Nestle inspires trust in consumers, forms truly long-term loyalty. The brand associates itself with the idea of a healthy lifestyle, happiness, which is close to a wide segment of consumers. This is a really strong brand with clear attributes, which has gained high recognition in the market. That is, in a few words, the advantages of Nestle will be as follows: high-quality food products that guarantee safety for the health of adults and children, superior to the products of many other manufacturers.
3. Values. Here we are also talking about quality products that can be trusted. It is through them that the company strives to contribute to the good life of consumers. The brand creates an emotional connection, evokes a feeling of trust and comfort that are close to absolutely every person. That is, the values of Nestle will be as follows: confidence in the quality and safety of goods, focus on all age groups.
4. Individuality. This is concern for consumers, their well-being. This is reliability, reflected in trust and confidence in the quality of the goods, adherence to eternal corporate principles. This is peace, which is associated with stability, security, peace.
5. Essence. It is described by the phrase "Good food, good life". This is the main slogan of this brand, reflecting its desire to offer the audience products that contribute to their well-being.

Brand wheels are mostly created by marketers, product managers, brand managers or business owners. The information for this is obtained through analyzing the work of their company, market research and individual products, customer surveys. In some cases, it would be useful to create 2 different brand wheels: current and desired. This way you can show what your company looks like today and what you would like to see it in the future. Thanks to this, you can identify development prospects, opportunities to expand the product line or attract a more solvent audience.

Summing up

A brand wheel is a model that defines its essence and a number of related characteristics, with the help of which you can convey to the audience on the network the advantages and benefits that they will receive when interacting with you. The main difficulty at the stage of its creation is finding information, creatives. And here various tools that collect information from various sources, including competitors' websites, structure it and present it in the most visual form will come in handy. We cannot discount the possibilities of artificial intelligence in terms of finding original, non-trivial ideas. And it is also important to think in advance about the channels through which you will attract an audience to your business, as well as ensure their effective operation.

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