Positioning on The Findings Report

Safety Brands

Sun, 04 Mar 2018 16:23:00 -0800

While doing some research for a client a few months ago, I engaged in an email dialog with one of my research respondents. We occasionally receive feedback from people who take our surveys. Usually, it is a complaint about how long the survey was or an expression of dissatisfaction because they did not qualify for our study. This email was different.

“Do people really feel this strongly about brands? Just asking.”

Focused and Fit

Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:52:00 -0700

Is the glass half full or half empty?

You’ve undoubtedly heard or used this expression many times. It is usually used to declare whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. While this metaphor has become trite, it is an important dimension of consumer behavior. Academics refer to it as regulatory focus, and understanding it can have a big impact on your sales and marketing strategies.

I’ll illustrate with an example. I have been working on a new client project that focuses on physical fitness. In a brainstorming session, a member of the team gave an impassioned argument about positioning this new brand around the buzz and excitement that people feel toward exercise. It was a pretty good case. But I had to ask the question: Does that mean you’re excluding the 50% of the market that exercises against their will? The 50% of the market that goes to the gym solely because they worry that if they don’t something bad will happen—like gaining weight, or getting heart disease, or feeling down because they didn’t do something that everyone tells them is essential?

Are You In or Not?

Sun, 18 Jun 2017 17:15:00 -0700

Did you sit on the senior quad? How often do you get invited to the hottest events within your industry? Or, more relevant to the current times, how much do your Instagram pics get liked?

All of these circumstances deal with degrees people feel of inclusion or exclusion. It’s a primal feeling—a feeling that is often purposefully induced by marketers. Most brands choose the route of inclusion (e.g, Coke’s infamous “teach the world to sing” campaign) while others go for the more controversial choice of exclusion (e.g., Equinox’s “Commit to something” campaign). The exclusive choice is a favorite of luxury brands and counterculture brands. The objective of this strategy is to reinforce the unique value of the brand by explicitly stating who qualifies and who doesn’t, implicitly relying on the fact that everybody wants to feel special.

What it really means to be a Challenger Brand

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Some might say there’s a rebel in all of us. At some point in your life you probably felt the urge to break the rules. Maybe you crossed the street when that hand was flashing on the signal. Or maybe you zealously removed the tag from your mattress. Each of us, in our own way, has a wild side.

That’s why it is no surprise that a lot of business managers are enamored with the challenger brand. It’s the lovable outlaw of branding, thumbing its nose at the establishment and disrupting the status quo while being idolized as the quintessential cool kid of the category. The concept of a challenger brand is anything but new. Adam Morgan has written prolifically about what makes a challenger brand since publishing his findings from a global study of 50 companies in 1999. But I’ve noticed rising interest in challenger brand strategies over the past year or so. I’m asked a lot about them at speaking events and during interviews, and I’ve heard many a prospective client tell me they think of themselves as a strong challenger.

Stake Promises, Not Positions

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:32:00 +0000

A brand promise is not the same as a brand position. It is a common nugget of brandlore that the two phrases mean the same thing. They do not, though they are related to each other. A position asserts a line of argument (as in “what position shall we take in this message?”) or it pinpoints a location in perceptual space (as in “which position do we or shall we occupy in the mind of the consumer?”) Positioning thrives on “open space”—perceptual territory that your brand can claim because it is unclaimed by competitors. Imagine you operate a brand in an environment where every competitor uses a red logo. To effectively position your brand, you might choose to make your logo blue because that color is “ownable.” This example is a gross oversimplification of positioning, but it illustrates one reason a position is different from a promise. You position to be different and to stand out. It’s an essential activity, indeed, but it is possible to reposition a brand by focusing on purely cosmetic changes and not deliver any real, incremental value. In contrast, when you make a brand promise, you still stake a position, but you also create a covenant with consumers. You commit to deliver value.