The Landscape
A competitive audit reveals emotional whitespace to be charted and conquered.
The most exciting part of an adventure film is the scene where the hero swipes everything off the table and lays out a map. Before the action, the drama, the trials and triumphs, there is the grand plan. It’s clear what needs to be accomplished, but how?
There’s a similar moment in the creation of a brand story. To plan the journey, we must become familiar with the territory. Who and what is out there that could help or hinder us? Where are the pitfalls and the safe passages? Laying out what we know about the market helps us find the whitespace and differentiate, right away.
This crucial step in building a brand platform is best known as a competitive audit, wherein we size up our challengers and strategize what our dominance among them will look like. We line them up, one by one, listen to the stories they are telling, and notice who they are talking to. What are they missing and who are they leaving out? That’s where we’ll set our sights.
“This is the moment when everything is wide open.”
Unicorn companies seem to have automatic overnight success, until you realize that a brand like Glossier succeeded because its conception was preceded by six years of thorough competitive audit via its founder’s blog Into the Gloss. By creating a community around what beauty products modern consumers loved most, and giving them a place to discuss it, ITG was effectively a market-research firm. By the time the company called in skincare formulators and packaging designers, its team knew exactly what was missing from the millennial market (in a word: simplicity). The resulting brand story was so organic and seemingly effortless, you’d never know that half a decade of legwork went into it.
Wildly successful founders often speak with nostalgia about the their company’s research and planning phase. This is the moment when everything is wide open. Dreaming, strategizing, plotting. It’s pregnant with potential. The future is ours, if only we’ll step up and take our place in it.