Brand Tension

Muji takes its name from Mujirushi Ryōhin, roughly 'no-brand quality goods.' Four decades later, the plain packaging and absence of logos have become recognizable themselves. A shopper can identify the store without needing a big sign. The claim to have no brand has helped create a rather distinctive one.

That's a contradiction in commercial work. The no-brand claim gives customers something to puzzle over, while the products make the restraint recognizable.

A positioning exercise usually tries to get everything pointing the same way. Agree the promise, personality and tone, then remove what seems inconsistent. That produces coherence. It doesn't necessarily give a customer much to wonder about or remember.

Why the mind lingers on a mismatch

There's a fairly old piece of consumer research behind this. In 1989, Joan Meyers-Levy and Alice Tybout tested how people evaluate products that fit, or don't quite fit, the category they belong to. Products that matched expectations drew mild approval. Products that clashed badly fared worse. Products with a moderate mismatch, something unexpected that could still be resolved, were evaluated most favourably, apparently because working out the puzzle was rewarding in itself. Later work by Laura Peracchio and Tybout found the effect held among people without deep knowledge of the category, which describes the typical shopper in a category they don't follow closely.

Try the product, and the apparently incompatible claims should begin to fit. There is a small pleasure in working out the connection. If the encounter never provides it, the mismatch remains an irritant. The brand needs something more rewarding to offer on the next visit.

Customers contradict themselves daily

In the basket, cheap paper towels sit beside expensive coffee. The shopper hasn't forgotten their budget between aisles; they care more about the coffee. Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske's 2003 book Trading Up described saving in some categories to spend in others with emotional significance. The shopper's priorities explain a purchase pattern that one income label cannot.

Luxury with humour or a discount store with exceptional design care can appeal to this shopper. An irreverent heritage business can have the same sort of character. More than one recognizable quality is available for the customer to respond to.

Tension and muddle

This needs a distinction from a muddle. Two departments failing to agree can leave the business making incompatible promises. Choosing to hold two qualities deliberately is a different decision. There should be a clear explanation, visible in the business, of how both can be true.

Look for the explanation where the customer can encounter it. Muji's restraint is in the objects. Patagonia placed 'Don't Buy This Jacket' in The New York Times on Black Friday in 2011; repair programs and environmental commitments gave a clothing company's appeal to buy less some substance. Without the surrounding behaviour, the same line could have been an advertising stunt.

An object, a service detail or a member of staff can make the connection intelligible. If none does, the customer is left to invent an explanation. 'They haven't decided what they are' is one available answer.

Different from picking a fight

It's worth separating this from a neighbouring tactic. Defining a brand against a rival creates tension outside the brand, with the competitor cast as the foil. A contradiction creates tension inside the brand, and invites the customer to resolve it. Both can sharpen a positioning. They work on different parts of the mind, and the internal version tends to last longer, because it doesn't depend on the rival staying relevant.

Finding the tension that's already there

The useful tension may already be in the business. Look at what the company does that its category wouldn't lead a customer to expect. Manufacturing a puzzle for a campaign is easier, but it gives the experience less to substantiate.

There are a few reliable places to look. A company that's stubbornly old-fashioned in a modern category, or the reverse. A company that's cheap but obsessive about something expensive brands neglect. Staff who behave differently from the category stereotype. Customers nobody would have predicted.

Showing the mismatch publicly can make managers uneasy. Explanations and qualifications start to gather around it. Research may find confusion, but that finding needs following into the experience. Does using the product make the pairing click? Or does the customer remain puzzled? The first kind of discomfort can be part of the appeal.

How tensions get resolved to death

Growth can start removing the tension before a rival gets near it. A new market has different expectations. A new manager prefers one half of the position. Each committee makes the brand a little more coherent, until one of the qualities customers noticed has quietly disappeared.

A new CMO dislikes humour at a luxury price. A cost review removes design care from the discount retailer. New ownership treats the heritage with more solemnity. Each decision has an argument behind it. The customer experiences the combined result: the intriguing part has gradually disappeared.

Both halves need resources and someone watching for neglect. Otherwise, the business may eventually pay for a repositioning to bring back what it once removed, advertising a return to its roots at considerable expense.

Different markets, different resolutions

A new market brings another reading of the qualities. Heritage may carry more solemn pride there, making the familiar joke harder to land. Modesty may be taken for limited ambition. Examine the local experience as well as the translated campaign. The explanation may need to change even when the two qualities remain.

Before expansion, name the two claims. Locate the evidence a customer in that market will encounter for each.

Handling the object or using the service is where the connection ought to become clear. The campaign can raise the question. An experience that keeps failing to answer it leaves advertising with an increasingly expensive explanation to repeat.

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