Mapping your yoga brand in the direction of justice.
You are looking for ways to build your yoga brand that is rooted in justice, but quite frankly you feel a bit disorientated, you can’t find tips on google that applies to you and that don’t have a clear idea as to where to start – or if it is actually possible.
If it resonates with you… you are not alone.
When I was mapping our brand positioning and using traditional values like price, method, style, etc - I had to figure it out all by myself and felt very discouraged.
You don’t have to. In this complete guide, you will find all the ins and outs of mapping your yoga brand from a justice centered lens instead of a consumption lens.
Feel excited?
You should!
What is brand mapping?
Brand Mapping is essentially an infographic that maps the position of your brand based on the details you have such as values, goals, and personality. If you google ‘brand mapping’, you will see cringey words rooted in capitalism and scarcity such as comparison, competition, ownership and dominance. I was not particularly comfortable with these words that traditional brand mapping uses to gain a competitive advantage over the other people within the field.
Sure the tool is useful in its’ most capitalistic sense, but if your values are rooted in anti-oppression, then these tools are not useful.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
I highly recommend reading this article where this graph is sourced from because you will see how binaries like this creates more binaries. In fact in this article, there is a quote that says “Premium or Cheap, Anything but the Middle”
Example of a traditional brand map for gyms.
Source: Toptotal
With that being said, there is value in understanding and spending quality time to figure out what the values of your business are and who are the people/businesses/organizations that have similar values as you. Not to compete but to understand who your allies and co-conspirators are.
In this vein, we need a different tool.
Our map needs to be re-configured in a way that makes sense for brands that value collaboration over competition, roots their growth in anti-capitalist values and seeks to keep their industry accountable.
A brand map for yoga brands holding the industry accountable:
To use this map, I highly recommend unpacking your industry first using this free guide. From there, it can help you figure out who are the people peddling dominant narratives in your industry, who are your allies (people who are passive about it) and who are your co-conspirators (people who are actively interrogating)
How to use this map?
1) List down the value descriptors of yoga as an industry and yoga as a practice.
2) Plot the businesses whose current values match with yoga as an industry and whose current values match with yoga as a practice. Be honest when you do this! Remember that this map is a tool to help you discover where you brand is in the midst of things.
3) List down the value descriptors for exclusive access and the value descriptors for radically inclusive access. For example: price, type of classes, race and gender expression are some of the value descriptors that I tend to factor in.
4) Have at least 5 brands mapped on here.
5) Using the same value descriptors, map where your brand is.
Don’t feel discouraged if there is work to be done.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
