If you want to elevate your brand building strategy and make your marketing messages stand out, you need to understand where the brand presently sits in consumers’ psyches. You need to discover your brand’s truth — what it is and what it can never be. Isabelle Albanese, author of The 4 Cs of Truth in Communications, suggests asking these questions:

What is your brand, and what is it not? This provides a kind of roadmap for your brand positioning strategy, and the limits of consumer acceptance. Dunkin’ Donuts, for example, discovered that it is a consistent, quickly delivered, high-quality cup of coffee at a reasonable price, and that it is not a pretentious, overly expensive latte that is enjoyed over a long period of time.

What does your brand stand for, and what does it stand against in the minds of consumers? This begins to get at emotional connections, underpinnings of customer loyalty, and long-standing beliefs and their origins. Dunkin’ Donuts stands for the everyday, hardworking man or woman; it stands against phoniness and fluff.

What is your brand an expert in, and what does it know nothing about? This determines the equity of your brand strategy in the marketplace, and where it lacks credibility. Dunkin’ Donuts is an expert in coffee and doughnuts, not soy lattes.

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