Examples of Brand Benefits - Empower

For some people there are things that they want more than happiness or goals that they are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve. For these people, showing them how your product will empower them to reach their goal is the key. Again, as with any branding message, this does not mean pushing some basic utility benefit on people. It means showing people succeeding. As strange as it sounds, the empowerment brand doesn’t have to be realistic. It’s unlikely, for example, that Mountain Dew, which sponsors the
X Games, actually makes athletes more athletic. Its message of empowerment, however, still appeals to their fans.

The idea of empowerment is perhaps best exemplified by Nike and their slogan “Just Do It,” which isn’t a suggestion or a command so much as it’s a promise. It is the company’s way of promising that they’ll help consumers perform better in athletic activities. This promise appeals to a wide audience, from people who play a sport to the people who simply enjoy watching them because everyone likes to feel empowered even if they aren’t actively engaged in the task. Cheerios also claims to empower people by promising to help them live longer so that they can continue to do the things they love to do. Unlike Nike or Mountain Dew, their ads don’t typically include young athletes. Instead, Cheerios brands itself as empowering middle-aged people who are working to make birdhouses, selling art, etc. The key to the empowerment brand, perhaps more than any other brand statement, is to be able to pinpoint exactly what your customers want and what they’ll relate to.