This seminal piece of work is worth a revisit again and again for the curious marketer. The basic tenant of this book is clear: To be noticed in today’s over-marketed society, a brand must firmly hold a place (position) in a consumer’s mind. Sure, that is relatively easy if you’re the market leader. But, if you’re not there first, look for a `hole’ or a ‘gap’, which is a niche not exploited by the market leader.
In marketing strategy, it is easier to attack a market leader indirectly rather than head on. Dell in its early days focused on a unique delivery mechanism and used the same to dominate the B2B market. Rather than fight HP and Compaq for shelf space in big box electronic retailers, it concentrated on direct sales. That part worked then.
Dell later unraveled when the consumer market which it had neglected entirely was serviced by HP and Sony. It was a clear case of Carly Fiorina’s long-term strategy coming into fruition (with the expected lag time between strategy implementation and the availability of tangible results) something which the stock market and the inept HP board of directors did not take into consideration before they fired her.
In any case, I digress. In positioning, Al Ries and Jack Trout warn against a positioned brand diluting a clear `value proposition or value position’ by meaningless line extensions. Think laundry – so many variations. Think motor oil – so many variations.
The concept of ‘Positioning’ was a break from Rossier Reeve’s 1950s Unique Selling Proposition (USP), which focused on benefits of the product itself. Today, the emotional concept of branding is popular, along with the idea of interactive connections with consumers. The problem with Positioning is that singular product differences are often too small to matter, suspicion about claims is high, the ability of advertising to achieve effective reach and frequency is enormously expensive nowadays and many products are bought on emotion rather than rationale. Still, positioning can work well if you are first to market, the unqualified best, the biggest, or the only one in a market. The concept is also useful as a way of thinking about a product and market and inserting your product in a certain slot in your market segments.
To help you determine your product’s positioning, the book asks some (rather general) questions:
1. What position do you own?
2. What position do you want to own?
3. Whom must you outgun?
4: Do you have enough money?
5. Can you stick it out?
6. Do you match your position?
Of strong interest is the discussion of line extension, and how it dilutes, rather than strengthens, a company’s position in the marketplace. In very basic terms, the authors explain the importance of offering something that appeals to the buyer, not to the seller, creator, or manufacturer. The product is positioned relative to the consumer, and his/her needs and values. For that, you must get into the mind of your consumer, and position your product accordingly.
When Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote this book ages ago, the positioning strategies they propagated were in response to a competitive marketplace quite different from the one present today. Nonetheless, effective positioning is critical today. Also, bear in mind that whatever you offer for sale, make certain that you fully understand customer expectations first before deciding how to manage customer perceptions. Those perceptions are within a frame-of-reference which changes constantly. A positioning plan should be strategic in that, it is able to understand the various frame of references within the customer segment in play and adapt accordingly.
One disappointing aspect however, was the absence of a detailed process on how to create a positioning strategy. The six questions above were helpful, but do not constitute a rigorous method to create a position. A technique that could be used to create positioning for a product, or to test a company’s current positioning would have been more useful than the tons of examples of positioning failures. I’m on a Jack Trout roll for now and will be reviewing more of his books including Repositioning. It’ll be a lot of fun.
