When the Brand You've Chosen Doesn't Match the Market You're In
Roshni Merani has seen brand positioning fail from both sides of the table. In Mumbai's luxury residential market, she first observed high-value property sales as a mystery customer, then later as part of a sales team. The pattern she noticed was consistent: developers selling homes worth millions of dollars led with amenity lists that were nearly identical from project to project.
"Every developer at that level would want to sell that lifestyle. You walk in and the pitch starts with the amenities," she said. "After a few visits, I realised they all had the same pilates studio, a yoga deck, an in-house café, and of course the view. Each project seemed to have looked at the premium tower next door and copied the list, so the features that were meant to set them apart were exactly why they all blurred together."
The disconnect was not about the quality of the amenities. It was about what buyers at that level were actually trying to determine. "What they were really trying to work out was how exclusive it would be. How many apartments are on each floor? How many families share that pool, that gym, that lounge? Who else is going to live here?" she explained. "A great amenity shared with hundreds of residents starts to feel like a nice residential club, and that's not what someone spending this kind of money has in mind."
The result was a pitch that answered a question nobody in the room was asking. "At that price, people want to feel the space is exclusively theirs, and the brands were selling more of what everyone else already had."
What Standard Brand Advice Leaves Out
Merani argues that most brand strategy guidance begins in the wrong place. "Most brand advice starts with the brand: define your purpose, your values, your voice," she said. "What it leaves out is that customers don't experience a brand as a statement. They experience it as a decision they're trying to make, often with other people in the room and something at stake."
That gap between how brands describe themselves and how customers actually decide is where positioning often loses its footing. "What I keep seeing is that the real reason someone chooses is usually less flattering and more specific than the one the brand tells itself. It's about reassurance, status within a particular circle, or avoiding regret, not 'craftsmanship' or 'a lifestyle.'"
The same blind spot shows up in how brands define their audiences. "Two households on identical incomes can behave entirely differently depending on their obligations and priorities," she noted. "Demographics describe who a customer is; but they say little about how that customer chooses." For Merani, the consequence is clear: "Strategy that ignores the psychology of the decision produces brands that are articulate but unfortunately not persuasive enough."
The Sequencing Problem: Positioning Before Evidence
When asked what people decide too quickly or in the wrong order, Merani pointed to a common sequence error. "Usually, they write the positioning first and then go looking for customers who fit it," she said. "I think it should work the other way around. Watch how people actually make the choice. Notice what they compare you to, what they ask about, and where exactly does the hesitation come in. Then decide what you stand for."
The second thing people rush is defining the competitive set. "Brands tend to benchmark against the names they admire, but customers often compare across categories," she explained. She offered an example from the beverage market in India: "A café might work hard to beat the matcha down the road on sourcing and grade, when the person ordering is really deciding between a matcha, a cold brew and a boba. And underneath that, they're deciding what kind of person they want to be that afternoon, the one with the wellness ritual or the one who just needs caffeine."
The cost of misjudging the real competitive frame is not confined to messaging. "If you misjudge what you're really up against, the mistake shows up everywhere else, in your pricing, your messaging and the experience you build," she said.
Practical Takeaways
Merani's observations point to a few concrete adjustments for brand leaders:
- Start with the decision, not the identity. Observe how customers actually choose before committing to a positioning statement. What they compare you to and where hesitation appears are more useful inputs than an internal values exercise.
- Look beyond demographics. Income and household composition describe who customers are, but obligations and priorities shape how they choose. Segment by decision psychology, not just by profile.
- Audit your competitive set from the customer's side. The brands you admire may not be the ones your customers are actually weighing you against. Cross-category alternatives often matter more than direct rivals.
- Test whether your pitch answers the question in the room. In the luxury residential case, the amenity list answered a question about features while buyers were asking about exclusivity. The features were fine; the question was wrong.
Merani's work and further background are available at roshnimerani.com. For readers interested in the broader context of brand strategy practice, resources such as the American Marketing Association and Harvard Business Review's branding coverage offer additional perspective on positioning and customer decision-making.