When a luxury automaker’s CEO nonchalantly admitted he was fine with losing 85% of existing customers in pursuit of an edgy new image, marketers were stunned. This real scenario highlights a fundamental marketing truth: skip the research at your peril. From global coffee chains to car brands, we’ve seen what happens when companies leap into a bold brand positioning without truly understanding their audience. Starbucks, for example, once rolled out a lofty new mission (“nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection”) that had little to do with why customers loved the brand. The result? Confused consumers and a diluted brand message. In contrast, brands that put their audience first from day one are reaping the rewards, launching campaigns that resonate deeply and drive growth.
Diving into a brand repositioning without audience insight is a high-stakes gamble. Marketing history is littered with cautionary tales of brands that strayed too far from their core consumers. In the case of the automaker Jaguar, its dramatic 2024 rebrand – featuring artsy imagery and avant-garde slogans – aimed to attract a younger luxury crowd but alienated loyal buyers. The company even signalled it might abandon its heritage and current base in the process, prompting backlash from industry experts and even Elon Musk. As branding guru Mark Ritson observed, Jaguar’s approach seemed “blasé” about shedding its existing audience – an approach fraught with risk.
Such missteps often stem from skipping the homework. An ad agency proclaiming it’s “too early to do research” before crafting a positioning is, frankly, committing Marketing 101 heresy. It’s no wonder that when brands charge ahead on gut instinct alone, they can end up with positionings that sound great in the boardroom but fall flat with real consumers. Starbucks learned this the hard way: Ritson called its purpose-driven 2022 slogan “nonsense” because it failed to reflect what made the brand good in customers’ eyes. In an era where data-driven decision making is the norm, seeing a brand “miss the mark so badly” without testing with customers is shocking – and as one strategist notes, the brands that don’t test “pay the price.”
Ignoring research doesn’t just risk a failed campaign; it can damage brand equity. Alienating a large swath of your target market – or pursuing a tiny psychographic niche without evidence – means potentially flushing marketing dollars and goodwill down the drain. Little wonder a recent study found over half of marketers (54%) cite lack of customer insights as the biggest obstacle to delivering better brand experiences. Simply put, you can’t position a brand effectively if you don’t know who you’re positioning it for.
Great brands don’t begin with flashy slogans or cool logos – they begin with research. As my marketing professor Mark Ritson drilled into us, strategy follows a simple sequence: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning (STP). First you diagnose the market through research, then devise a strategy, and only then do you execute. In Ritson’s words, “diagnosis or research absolutely is the first stage in the process” of brand building. Even if you’re not launching a new product – maybe you’re refreshing a brand or planning an annual strategy – you start by understanding your market and audience. Skipping this step is like setting sail without a map.
Every market is made up of distinct groups of consumers with differing needs, behaviours, or mindsets. Segmenting that market through quantitative and qualitative research allows you to map out those differences. For example, you might find one segment of your audience is value-driven families, another is status-seeking urban professionals, and a third is trend-hungry Gen Z teens. These segments can be demographic (e.g. age, region), psychographic (lifestyles, values), behavioural (buying habits), or a mix. The key is that effective segmentation is empirical – it comes from surveying and analysing real customers, not just stereotyping.
Segmentation research gives you the lay of the land. It answers questions like: Who is our current audience and what do they care about? What distinct clusters exist in the broader category? Which potential customers might we be overlooking? The insight is often eye-opening. In one famous case, market research revealed that 60% of men’s body wash purchases were actually made by women – wives and girlfriends shopping for their partners. This insight prompted Old Spice to completely rethink its approach (more on that later). Without such data, you’re essentially guessing at what consumers want.
Segmentation sets the stage; targeting is where strategy happens. You can’t (and shouldn’t) go after everyone – you decide which segment(s) make the most sense for your brand to focus on. As Ritson bluntly puts it, “Targeting is the start of strategy. Without it, you cannot get a good product/market fit. Or position.”. Choosing a target is about finding a sweet spot: an audience segment that is sizable, reachable, and aligned with what your brand can credibly offer.
Does targeting mean excluding other customers? Not necessarily. It means you prioritise who you most want to win, and tailor your offering to them, while hopefully still appealing to secondary groups. Even broad brands benefit from clear targeting. Coca-Cola, for instance, has distinct campaigns for teens (e.g. with music tie-ins) versus families, even though everyone buys Coke. The targeting guides the tone and messaging.
Importantly, targeting must be rooted in reality. This is where research can save you from costly mistakes. If an agency presents a glam new persona – say, “Aspiring Avant-Garde Influencers” – as your target, you’d want to know what percentage of your actual market fits that profile. If it’s 5%, hitching your entire brand to that wagon might be a huge mistake. Research can quantify segment sizes and help predict the response. It provides the evidence to either validate or challenge strategic hunches.
Take Jaguar’s misadventure: the brand seemingly decided to target a sliver of ultra-fashionable, affluent Gen Z and millennials, at the risk of forsaking its core older clientele. The backlash underscored that you ignore your loyal base at your peril – a more prudent strategy might have been a gradual shift that expanded appeal without alienation. (Notably, when Volvo pivoted to electric vehicles, it did so without losing its “safe and Scandinavian” brand essence, attracting new tech-minded buyers while keeping longtime fans.) The art of targeting is balance: be choiceful about your focus, but stay mindful of the brand’s broader franchise.
Finally comes positioning – the distillation of your brand’s value proposition to appeal to your chosen target. Positioning is the bridge between insight and creative execution. It answers the customer’s question: “Why should I choose your brand?” A great positioning statement articulates what unique benefit you offer, who you’re for, and why you’re different or better than alternatives – all in a way that resonates with the target’s needs.
Crucially, positioning isn’t about what you want to say; it’s about what matters to the customer. As Ritson wryly notes, marketers must understand “the fundamental unimportance of your brand” in consumers’ lives. In other words, keep it simple and relevant. One prime example is KitKat. For decades, KitKat’s positioning has hinged on a basic human truth: people enjoy a little break. “Have a break, have a KitKat” isn’t a grand mission to change the world – it’s a humble promise tied to an everyday moment, and it’s brilliantly effective. KitKat’s market insight was recognising its role as a small treat that brightens a work break. By embracing that, KitKat owns the “break time” positioning in consumers’ minds, and it has paid off through enduring popularity.
Contrast that with Starbucks’ ill-fated attempt to position around “limitless human connection.” That flowery language didn’t click with coffee drinkers grabbing their morning latte; it was too abstract, failing to reflect the product or the occasion. The lesson is clear: positioning must be grounded in real customer experience and desire. Authenticity and clarity win over pretension every time. Your brand doesn’t need to save the planet (unless you’re an NGO) – it needs to solve a problem or fulfill a desire for your target audience, in a way that stands out from competitors.
To see how this all comes together, let’s look at how audience insight has powered remarkable brand turnarounds. These cases show that when brands do their research homework and follow the STP process, the results can be spectacular.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) is a textbook example of a brand that rediscovered its mojo by listening to its audience. A few years ago, this British retail institution was floundering – struggling to stay relevant in the face of discount rivals and changing consumer tastes. How did M&S plot its comeback? By going back to basics: through research and reflection, they realised that two attributes had always anchored the brand in shoppers’ hearts – quality and value. M&S wasn’t a luxury boutique, nor a bargain-basement chain; its niche was providing good quality products at reasonable prices. Over time, M&S had drifted, sometimes emphasising quality so much that prices rose too high, and at other times chasing price at the expense of quality. Customers noticed, and drifted away when the balance was off.
Under new leadership, M&S conducted deep customer insight work to re-appraise its brand perception. They heard loud and clear that their core shoppers still cherished the intersection of value and quality – they wanted affordable treats, not cheap junk, and not unaffordable luxe. This audience understanding informed a refined positioning: M&S doubled down on being the retailer where “quality and value” meet. They revamped product lines and messaging to hammer home that promise (for instance, improving garment quality while keeping prices competitive, and highlighting those benefits in marketing). The strategy also involved modernising how they stood out – looking to their heritage for inspiration. Classic product names were revived, and campaigns reminded customers that M&S can be trusted for both a tasty dinner and a sturdy sweater. The payoff has been huge. Over a five-year transformation, M&S has reversed its decline and even earned recognition as Brand of the Year in 2024 for its resurgence. Marketing experts applauded how M&S “rediscovered its equilibrium” of value-plus-quality and found fresh ways to express it in a crowded market. By charting its future with lessons from its past, M&S proved that knowing your audience’s enduring desires can breathe new life into a brand over a century old.
Now consider a more radical reinvention: Old Spice. This famous men’s grooming brand (dating back to 1937) was, by the late 2000s, seen as your grandfather’s cologne – stale, out of touch, and losing ground to trendier rivals. Old Spice’s revival came when the team took a hard look at who actually buys men’s body wash. Sure enough, research confirmed that a majority of those purchases were being made by women shopping for their husbands or boyfriends. This golden insight flipped the whole marketing strategy. Instead of exclusively targeting 18-34 year-old men with macho clichés (as competitors did), Old Spice decided to also target the women who influence those men’s purchases – while still ultimately appealing to the guys.
The result was the now-legendary “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign. The ads featured actor Isaiah Mustafa speaking directly to female viewers about how their man could smell as awesome as him if he used Old Spice. The genius of the execution was its over-the-top humour and charm – it gently poked fun at traditional hyper-masculine advertising, making both men and women laugh. Crucially, it stayed on-point: the underlying positioning was that Old Spice makes a man smell appealing (to himself and his partner). By blending audience insights into creative so effectively, Old Spice achieved a rare feat: it completely reinvented its brand personality and boosted sales by double digits, all without alienating its existing male customers. In fact, the bold approach attracted a new generation of young male fans who found the ads cool and ironic, and it reassured women that Old Spice “gets it” and can make their man smell great. It was a masterclass in smart audience targeting (hitting the real decision-makers) and differentiated positioning (no other men’s care brand had that witty, self-aware tone at the time). Old Spice’s brand transformation shows that even if a brand is perceived one way, research can uncover opportunities to reposition to new segments – as long as you respect what current and new customers actually want. In this case, they found a message that straddled both. Little wonder the campaign is still cited in marketing circles 15 years later as the gold standard of insight-led repositioning and creative bravery.
Both the M&S and Old Spice stories underscore that getting positioning right is an iterative journey, not a one-shot deal. It all starts with initial research to shape strategy, but equally important is continuing to test and learn. The most successful brands treat consumer research and brand tracking as ongoing guardrails that keep their positioning on course.
Before a new positioning or ad campaign goes fully live, smart marketers will often test the concepts with real consumers – through surveys, focus groups, or small-scale pilots. This doesn’t have to kill creativity; rather, it validates that the core idea “rings true and motivates your target audience”. Does the positioning concept make your target sit up and say “Yes, that speaks to me”? If not, better to find out in testing than after you’ve blown the media budget. Most brands use some form of pre-launch testing, and those that don’t inevitably risk public failure. Even something as simple as A/B testing two campaign directions in a few regions can shed light on what resonates more.
Likewise, once a campaign is in-market, brand tracking research is essential to measure performance. Brand Health (our firm) specialises in this kind of tracking – regularly surveying the target audience to gauge key metrics like awareness, brand associations, consideration, and preference. By watching these indicators, we can tell if a new positioning is gaining traction or if adjustments are needed. For example, if we see that one of our client’s key image attributes (say, “innovative” or “trustworthy”) isn’t improving despite a repositioning effort, that’s a signal to refine the messaging or strategy. Tracking data can also reveal who within the broader audience is responding. Perhaps the campaign is a hit with Millennials but Gen X remains lukewarm – invaluable insight for fine-tuning your targeting or media mix.
In essence, research is not a box to tick at the start – it should be woven through the entire brand building process. Segmentation studies feed the targeting strategy; concept tests and positioning surveys validate the direction; and continuous brand tracking monitors the execution’s success. If the data shows an approach isn’t landing, you iterate. This is agile marketing with a strong strategic backbone – being responsive to evidence without losing sight of the long-term brand goal. As Ritson advises, you can be agile in tactics, but only after you’ve set a clear strategy based on solid insight.
At the end of the day, successful brand positioning comes down to genuinely knowing and respecting your audience. It’s about doing the homework to understand who they are, what they care about, and how they see you – and then letting those insights guide every strategic decision, from which segment you court to what promise you make them. This is classic marketing wisdom, but it’s too often overlooked in the rush to create the next big campaign or edgy tagline. The irony is that even the most creative, “out-of-the-box” branding ideas need a foundation in customer reality to actually work.
The exciting part for us as marketers is that when you do ground your strategy in audience insight, you set the stage for marketing that is not only effective but also enduring. You build brands that connect with people’s real lives and values, and that can adapt as those evolve. Whether you’re repositioning a legacy brand like M&S, breathing new life into an aging product like Old Spice, or launching a startup, the principle is the same: start with research, follow through with strategy, and execute with the customer’s voice in your ear. That’s the formula for brand health (and yes, brand wealth).
In a world of shiny new marketing tactics and hype, this approach might seem almost humble – listen to the consumer, get the basics right, test, refine, repeat. But as the savviest senior marketers know, it’s the humble, fundamental things that drive extraordinary results. The journey of audience-driven brand reinvention isn’t always easy, but it’s immensely rewarding. When you see your brand not only gain market share or awareness but also earn a genuine place in consumers’ hearts, you realise that the first step – understanding them – was ultimately the step that made all the difference.