Nedra Glover Tawwab: Brand Positioning Case Study

A few months ago someone shared an IG story about boundary setting (and no it wasn’t Henry Cloud).

It was Nedra Glover Tawwab.

A quick scroll through her IG feed revealed she’s a licensed therapist who specializes in relationships and boundary building. I was hooked.

Why? She’s positioned herself as an un-conventional, approachable, yet authoritative therapy brand.

Let’s get into it…

💼 The Brand: Nedra Glover Tawwab

Nedra is a licensed therapist and NYT best-selling author. She specializes in providing bite-sized relationship and “boundary” advice on Instagram where she has over 1.7M followers.

💛 The Heart (Purpose & Values)

Nedra became a therapist after overcoming a traumatic childhood. She wanted to take control of her life narrative and teach others to do the same. She now describes her calling as “Helping people become themselves, unpack, and reclaim their voice.” 

👤 The Head (Strategy & Positioning)

People often make the mistake of thinking of therapy as soft or passive. But Nedra sets the record straight by leveraging her “Authoritative” brand personality in her content.

You might expect a therapist to have a “Calm” brand personality, but Nedra instead does what all great brands do — she leans into her origin story making it her super power.

She’s not just sharing advice on boundaries. She's empowering people to take authority over their space in life, regardless of the trauma, just like she’s learned how to do.

This results in her messaging and content being conveyed in a beautifully authentic way.

Want to know if your brand personality is “Authoritative” like Nedra’s or another type? Take our 2-minute quiz here.

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✋ The Hands (Tactics)

Here are a few of the ways Nedra expresses her brand personality:

• Instagram - Nedra has used Instagram to teach people how to take authority over their past and create relational boundaries in the present. Take a quick scroll and you’ll notice how she’s infused her brand personality across her content. This is the power of consistency and authenticity EVERYWHERE.

• Breakfast Club Interview - It might seem odd to see a licensed therapist taking part in a gritty, popular culture radio show like The Breakfast Club — but it just further solidifies her brand personality as “Authoritative.” 

• TED Collaboration — We’ve covered TED before in a previous Brand Breakdown issue. It’s one of the most prestigious thought leadership media outlets online.

Steal The Strategy

Nedra’s brand is so powerful because she sticks out. She’s bold… strong… and yes, authoritative. This flies in the face of the conventional connotations with the word “therapist.”

How can you leverage this?

Zig when your industry is supposed to zag. We’ve actually done this with marketing.

As a marketer, you’re “supposed” to shove people through a funnel and dump them when they don’t convert. You’re “supposed” to SELL SELL SELL. You’re supposed to treat people like a number in an Ads Manager/CRM/Google Sheet.

But we’ve chosen to buck that traditional thinking and build differently. We’ve put together two seemingly different words “Empathy” — all about paying attention to others — and meshed it with “Marketing” — all about getting people to pay attention to you.

Word of warning: This only works if it’s authentic. If you choose to be different without purpose, you’ll either stall out or be found out.

Want to take this line of thinking a level further? You can jump into our Master Your Messaging course where we teach you how to build a brand from the ground up… OR check out one of the free options below to connect.

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