Fix your positioning for a better V-Day campaign

Hello everyone! Last week my LinkedIn feed was filled with Valentine’s day campaigns. Some were great, some were complete failures and some, well, I don’t know what they were trying to do. 

One common pattern I noticed among missed campaigns was lack of positioning. Brands were resorting to vulgarity for the sake of virality. But what works for Durex will not work for InstaAstro.

Positioning saves you from making such mistakes. If you know the personality of your brand, how it talks, the tone it uses then you can avoid these mistakes.

To put my point forward, In today’s edition we will discuss the tug of war between two brands, Silk and 5 Star from the same parent company, Cadbury, who have been hitting the mark of Valentine’s day campaign without losing their brand identity.

Messaging:

Messaging of Cadbury Silk focuses on sensory indulgence (unlike a quick snack) and emotional connection. It positions itself as the chocolate that turns moments into memories whether you're treating yourself or showing someone how much they mean to you. It uses a warm, intimate tone.

On the other hand, Cadbury 5 Star messaging encourages you to disconnect, do nothing, and eat your 5 Star. It celebrates laziness, zoning out, and unapologetically taking time off from responsibilities and the hustle of daily life. It uses a playful, humorous tone.

The best part of their campaigns is that they never miss their messaging. Their core message stays the same irrespective of the day, time and place.

Just because it is Valentine's Day, 5 Star isn’t asking anyone to give this to your loved ones. Which is usual messaging of any brand around Valentine’s Day. Because 5 Star knows its messaging doesn’t go with the theme of Valentine’s which asks people to go extra for love.

Target Audience:

Brands for years have targeted one category for Valentine’s Day, i.e. couples until a few years back, 5 Star started targeting another category i.e. singles or people who don’t like/ don’t care about this day.

What is worth mentioning here is that 5 Star didn’t enter the couples market and sell its chocolate there. Usually any chocolate brand would wonder how they can push their brand to couples but 5 Star stayed in their audience category.

This is what good positioning does. It clearly tells you, your target audience so that you can cater to that specific market. 

Cadbury Silk launched, ‘Say it with Silk’ Campaign this year. It talks about how AI prompts fail and listening to your heart aka saying it with silk is the best option. –– Talking to their audience aka couples.

5 Star Launched, ‘Restoring Valentine’s Day’ Campaign. It talks about the origin of the day. The woman who invented this day stayed single her whole life and celebrated this day by doing nothing, hence this is what you should do. –– Talking to their audience aka singles.

I feel like this is truly a masterclass in brand positioning. It amazes me how the same parent company is saying two opposite things for the same day and covering the entire market with it.

The consistency:

What makes the positioning works the best is consistency. Consistency in their tone, messaging, target segment etc. If we take any other day than V-day, you’ll still find Cadbury silk using the same tone, catering to the same audience.

Similarly, 5 Star says the same message irrespective of the day. They aren’t changing their tone and messaging just because of a festival. Instead they are only celebrating festivals which fits their brand tone.

Consistency is so strong that you’ll not find 5 Star to cover the market on Diwali. Though you’ll find Cadbury saying, ‘kuch meetha ho jaye’.

5 Star if comes up with doing nothing as their Diwali Campaign, it will hurt religious sentiments. If Silk comes up with a Diwali campaign, it will not make sense to talk about romance that day, again, can hurt religious sentiments but Cadbury still has the number 1 Diwali campaign. 

Every brand of Cadbury stays in their respective zones, only talks to their relevant audience, and only celebrates relevant festivals of their zones.

This consistency throughout the years has created the brand identity. This is what has made them irreplaceable in their zones. Whether you have given a chocolate as a gift on Valentine’s day or not, but you know silk is an option in the market for this particular day. You know Cadbury gift pack is an option on Diwali.

I don’t know about you but my mind is blown right now. 🙈

What other brands are getting wrong?

When I watched most of the Valentine's Day campaigns, I realized that brands are asking the wrong question. They are asking:

- What's trending on Valentine's Day?
- How do we go viral?
- What can we say that remotely connects our brand to Valentine's day?

The important question they are missing are ––

- Is it connected to our messaging?
- Is it important for our target audience?
- How can we talk about it with our brand identity?

Virality is important but not at the cost of brand identity. Also, when you target every audience, you end up targeting no one.

3 questions for brands to ask themselves right now:

• What is the one core message of your brand?

• What type of audience do you not serve?

• Explain your brand personality as if it is a real human. 

Now see if the answer matches your content and campaign. If it is on the same page as your brand’s core identity, you are doing this right. 

This is it for today’s newsletter. Would love to hear your inputs.
What do you think about these Valentine’s Day campaigns? 

See you soon!
- Diksha