What should be the first priority of a marketing head - brand syntax, business results or customer insights? What is your formula for a nascent brand?

t(Excerpt from discussions initiated by Rahul Sinha, Marketing Head, Birla Sun Life in the ‘Marketing Pundit’ group on Linkedin.com)

Deep Banerjee wrote:
Customer Insights should be the first priority of a marketing head.
For a nascent brand, the market segmentation has to be flawless. Accordingly, the brand's positioning stance has to be worked out.

Rahul Sinha wrote:
Another view - If you do not know your Brand Syntax (what is at the heart of your brand), customer insight will be a map but you would lack the purpose. Hence the first goal should be to determine the brand syntax. Positioning will require both. So a chicken and egg? Which first?

Deep Banerjee wrote:
Before I typed out my comment, I pondered a lot over the superior choice - brand syntax or customer insights. I chose the later. I felt that a product/ brand should be conceptualized with the customer in mind. His demographic, behavioral and psychographic profile assessment is extremely important. That will dictate the brand communication language, methodologies, expenses, etc. All said, I too agree that it’s a chicken and egg story.

Alok Sud wrote:
I agree, knowing your customer is first and foremost priority. Once you know the Target Audience you are chasing, the nest logical step would be creating a value proposition to attract the customers, the brand syntax would then need to be worked out and thereafter the rest of the stuff follows. Without a clear understanding of the customer nothing would work, however great the brand syntax / architecture.