This Exclusive Research is What You Need to Position Your Business in 2022

Anyone who has ever battled with rebranding, or is currently attempting to do so, knows that it’s a difficult endeavor. Making the wrong decision in positioning your business can place your company in front of the wrong audience, endangering its growth and prospects of success.

That’s why anyone looking to make a successful start in the market and rebrand their business in a way that appeals to their core market must understand how to apply brand positioning concepts.

And to make it quicker and easier for you, we tested a few brand positioning concepts to observe how consumers react to businesses that take an innovative vs. traditional position.

Why This Survey Matters

The goal of our survey was to determine which brands customers were drawn to and how that differed depending on their demographics.

The data we gathered will help business people, whether they run a small, medium, or large company, to make quick, well-informed branding decisions while rebranding their company.

But to meet the survey’s objectives, we questioned people in the United States whether they would prefer to work with a well-known or trusted company or one that was new and innovative.

Why’s This Question Necessary?

Now, it’s vital to know that choosing your company’s tone is one of the most important and defining branding decisions you’ll make when launching or rebranding your firm. And choosing the best tone is crucial because it empowers entrepreneurs, product managers, and brand executives to shape the future of their company.

Consider what might have happened to the market today if:

• Apple entered the market as Executex
• Zappos was still known as Shoestore
• Amazon was still named Cadabra
• Nike had maintained its name as Blue Ribbon Sports
• Hydrox had chosen a more appealing name
• Ayds diet candy had quickly rebranded itself.

The tone of your brand has an impact on the entire personality of your company and the feelings people associate with your brand. You can’t afford to overlook your company’s tone when setting up your naming strategy because it’s so vital to your branding.

Now, although there are several brand tones, most of them fall somewhere between ‘historied and trustworthy’ or ‘modern and innovative’ tones.

To get a good picture, let’s take a look at some popular examples of traditional brands:

• Warby Parker 
• Blackstone
• Liberty Mutual
• Gucci
• IBM

Here are some famous examples of modern brands:

• Urban Decay
• Robinhood
• Accenture
• Apple
• Slack

We meticulously designed our survey to determine which audience demographics are drawn to modern brands and which are drawn to traditional brands. And we did this because one of the most important decisions every business must make when rebranding is whether to go modern or traditional.

Here’s What the Survey Revealed

Although the survey’s results were somewhat predictable, the answers we got were surprising and refreshing. Here’s a simple rundown of what we learned from the 301 persons that participated:

• Persons between the ages of 25 and 34 are attracted to new and innovative brands. More than half of those we surveyed chose new and modern brands over traditional and trusted ones.
• People aged 35–45 favored new and innovative companies over traditional and trusted brands. It’s worth noting, though, that this group was evenly split between the two options.
• Traditional and trustworthy brands were more appealing to people aged 45–54 and 55–65.
• People between 55 and 65 years were particularly attracted to traditional businesses with a long history and a good reputation.
• From the survey, we learned that men showed little to no preference for either modern or historical brands.
• Also, the survey revealed that women are more likely to choose historical and trusted companies over new and innovative ones.
• Out of the 301 people we surveyed, 153 preferred historical and trustworthy companies, while 148 loved new and innovative brands. The study’s findings show that businesses can take any position they choose as long as it’s in line with their target audience.

What Does This Mean to You?

According to the survey’s results, the majority of young people are interested in new, modern, and innovative companies. So, if you want to appeal to a younger market, then give your business a unique, modern, and innovative brand identity.

But if your core customers are Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers, then you should position your business as a classic, conventional, and trusted brand because clients aged 45 to 65 are more receptive to classic brands.

In addition, the study makes it clear that if an entrepreneur wants to perfectly rebrand their business, they must pay special attention to the tone of their brand. And one of the greatest ways to unite your product, audience, and business is to get a powerful brand name, and you can do that by using a strong business name generator.

Here’s an Example of a Well-Positioned Brand

Hulu is a great, well-positioned brand. The company entered the market with a distinctive brand name that was the extreme representation of a ‘new and innovative’ tone. However, with over 40 million subscribers, it’s clear that their naming decision was a wise one.

Hulu is successful today because its tone is perfect for its business and target audience. Hulu’s target audiences are Gen Zs, Millennials, and even Gen Xers, and as our study revealed, this demographic loves new and innovative companies.

Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies.