The right time to position brands is seldom obvious. Brand consultants will eagerly advise about how to position your brand. The key to effective brand positioning is more about “when to “ rather than “how to”. Even if marketers know how, they don’t think too much about when. Marketing organizations are so invested in heads down tactics many are risk averse and value predictable outcomes. It’s little wonder many don’t recognize the right time to make a shift in strategic direction until it’s too late.
Living in an era of hyper change.
The distance from innovation to commodity is getting shorter each day. While one company is betting its future on its latest and greatest product introduction, another company is reinventing the future and making everything else in the category obsolete. The recent retooling and reintroduction of the Blackberry is a dramatic case in point. Poor RIM (a.k.a. BlackBerry) spending all that time, energy and capital only to produce a lesser version of the very product that is putting them under.
Sadly it’s too late for more me-too innovation in an era where the speed of innovation is faster than any one company can keep up with. Kodak, Blockbuster, Sears, Newsweek and a host of other brands who were once the dominant forces of innovation in their category, have become mere shadows of their former glory. Stuck in their culture of success, these organizations institutionalized the original success into an impediment to change and adaptability, while more nimble competitors were changing the game all together.
Timing is everything – in fact it trumps aggregated knowledge and capability. When mental models within organizations become the status quo and remained fixed, it’s nearly impossible to face any challenge that does not conform to the organization’s current point of view. There was no way Blockbuster could anticipate the game changer known as Netflix. When Blockbuster did finally react, it was far too late. Blockbuster had lots of knowledge and capability – just no foresight.
The right time to position or reposition brands is seldom obvious.
If you’re in an organization that holds to the adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, then your brand is already doomed to the slush pile. In an age of disruptive product innovation and radical differentiation, what got you there, won’t keep you there. Positioning (or for many organizations re-positioning) your brand is usually an activity done in response to a threat rather than pre-emptive strategy of staying one step ahead.
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Choosing the most advantageous competitive frame of reference is a very important part of brand positioning. Earlier on Branding Strategy Insider I shared how Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute redefined itself from an engineering school to a place where technological innovation thrives (why not change the world?®). I shared how The Strong Museum redefined itself from a children’s museum to THE place that studies and explores play and American University redefined itself as a place for WONKs, focusing on its location in Washington, DC and even its association with public policy. In all three of these instances, the brands intended to move from more crowded categories to a category of their own creation in which they became the only (category-of-one) brand.
I have also explored how to define the category that a cola brand might be in. Is the category colas, or carbonated beverages or soft drinks or non-alcoholic beverages or all beverages or rehydration or human liquid consumption or refreshment or something else?
What category is Dasani Drops in? Perhaps the tagline defines it – “flavor enhancer.” Does this mean that the category is not flavored water? How does that help Dasani Drops competitively?
There are hundreds of professional associations and societies in health care, reflecting the degree of complexity and specialization in that field. We are working with a professional society in health care that develops physician leaders. Is their competitive frame of reference professional societies for physicians, professional societies for physician leaders, professional societies for health care executives, professional development for health care administrators, leadership development for physicians or something else? While these may all seem similar, depending on what they have chosen, their competitive set and unique value proposition changes, especially in this crowded field.
Just as choosing the most advantageous target customer definition is not a trivial exercise, so too is choosing the competitive frame of reference. Choosing a competitive frame of reference based on the most powerful motivators for the target customers can lead to a previously undefined category in which your brand has few, if any competitors. That category definition helps your brand own the benefit more quickly before any other brand is able to claim it. Being able to redefine the category requires out-of-the box thinking.
If interested, we have tools to help you explore category description alternatives, including those that can transform your band into a category-of-one.
Sponsored by: The Brand Positioning Workshop
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Featuring John Sculley May 16-17, 2013 in San Diego, California
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As in the marketplace — some will win, some will lose, All will learn
I have positioned five wealth management brands and over a dozen other financial service brands in my brand consulting career. Most people, when thinking about wealth management brands, think the target customer is fairly straightforward – anyone who has more than $250,000 or $500,000 of investable assets – individuals or institutions. And while most wealth management firms’ customers would meet this criterion, this is not the bulls-eye of the target. As an example, when working with wealth management clients, they have arrived at each these different definitions of their target customers [1]:
Imagine what the brand promise for each of these brands might be. Imagine what the marketing messaging might be. Imagine through what channels, methods and media these potential customers might be reached. Imagine how the brand promise might be delivered. Imagine the proof points that might support the brand promise. Imagine what the products and services might be and how they might be delivered. Each of these would be different, radically different, for each of these brands.
While I used the wealth management category as an example, this is true of every product/service category. Brands that create amazingly loyal customers tend to have very well defined target customers, so much so that they tend to share values with those customers.
When we are conducting brand positioning workshops, it is important to spend as much time as possible defining the target customer. It is akin to the saying that “defining the problem is half of the solution.” Defining the target customer properly gets you most of the way toward crafting a unique and compelling brand promise. I wish you great success in carefully defining your target customer.
[1] Target customer definitions are altered for illustrative purposes
Sponsored by: The Brand Positioning Workshop
Join us at The Un-Conference: 360° of Brand Strategy for a Changing World
Featuring John Sculley May 16-17, 2013 in San Diego, California
A unique, competitive-learning workshop limited to 100 participants
As in the marketplace — some will win, some will lose, All will learn
Unlike product brands that you can pick off the shelf or take for a test-drive, most professional services organizations sell an intangible. The product cannot be fully “experienced” until it’s purchased. That intangible is usually a promise to produce a desired future outcome that improves the condition of the customer.
Professional services are sold on reputation and trust, and a strong brand establishes these qualities in the minds of prospects. The prospect buys into the promise based on their level of trust with the provider. For this reason, brand building for professional services companies is often more critical to building business value than for product brands.
In an age where most service brands are price driven commodities, professional services brands have to be positioned in the minds of customers with razor sharp precision. To be effective in creating relevant differentiation for their brand, marketers of professional service brands have to be thinking about building cathedrals in the minds of their target customers, rather than providing bricks (services) to them.
To build cathedrals in the mind, service brands must focus on un-covering their value to clients and customers beyond the functions of service delivery. Service offerings, claims of expertise and quality delivery are table stakes in uncovering the real “value” of a service brand. When “services” are in abundant supply, customers need something more than ephemeral claims to make purchase decisions, and more importantly, become loyal advocates of the service brand.
If you take a close look at the current claims of most professional services brands in any discipline, here’s a list of the most common (and forgettable) claims:
- We are client focused
- We are global
- We build lasting relationships
- We value trust and integrity
- We are experienced in your industry
- We are results driven
- We provide quality outcomes
No there’s nothing inherently wrong with these attributes all by themselves, but if you happen to be the CEO prospect seeking a professional services firm, wouldn’t you think these would be the antes in the deal? These claims are ubiquitous and don’t buy much relevant differentiation for the brand. Yet surprisingly enough, these are the core messages that most professional services brands hang their hats on. In the noise and clutter of the modern marketplace, much more is required to stand out and win.
Building Cathedrals In The Mind Because the business of professional services is based on service delivery and efficiency, it’s difficult for brand owners to elevate their value propositions beyond the table stakes necessary to be in the game. Few are thinking about building cathedrals in the minds of the prospect.
Cathedrals are “highly valued outcomes” clients and customers desire that cannot be easily obtained. When your service brand represents a highly valued outcome not in abundant supply, chances are your brand will command a premium position, you will command premium fees, and business development will primarily be centered in responding to inbound inquires, rather than outbound marketing and message delivery.
There are two types of “outcomes” clients and customers will commonly desire:
Blatant Outcomes Basically the customer says, “we need to get this done or something bad will happen”.
There is a penalty for not buying, so essentially there is no option for the prospect — they must buy. Accounting, Law Firms and Pest Control Brands serve these blatant outcomes.
Latent Outcomes In this case the customer “doesn’t know what they don’t know”. Needs are unknown and unarticulated until the service brand enlightens the prospect to an outcome that, once revealed, is one that can’t be lived without. Research Firms, Science and Technology, Advertising Agencies, Public Relations Agencies, Architecture and Engineering Firms serve latent outcomes.
It’s critical to know just what type of cathedral the prospect has in their mind. Is it latent or blatant? In many respects this sets the context or frame of reference for the services brand. Essentially it is the game the brand has chosen to play in. More importantly, having this insight will reveal the level of resonance and relevance the prospect will have for your services.
The next piece of the puzzle is brand positioning. Here, the challenge is to distinguish between required attributes – the ones that all competitors must have – and the truly unique attributes that only your firm can credibly claim.
At its most basic level, brand positioning comes down to this:
What outcome the brand provides (value proposition), to whom (target customer), better than anyone else (proof).
Let’s look at these three essential components in more detail:
The Brand’s Value Proposition This is the “one thing” that your brand will stand for beyond delivering services. This one thing must be highly valued by the target client and not be in abundant supply by competitive brands. This “one thing” usually has absolutely nothing to do with providing functional benefits to clients.
The Target Customer For professional service brands, defining the target customer is more about “fit” than demographics. A good fit between service provider and client to be is usually based in the ability of the prospect to:
- Actively seek a solution to a blatant or latent desired outcome
- Appreciate the “value” of the outcome more than the cash to obtain it
- Trust the providers expertise
- Demonstrate a rapport that builds relationships quickly
- Have the financial resources to engage
Defining the target customer is about exclusion not inclusion. To position your brand deftly with precision requires the art of sacrifice. Not everyone will fit.
Brand marketers must remember, for professional services brands to become the one in a million in the minds of prospects and clients, three things need to be in continuous alignment at every touchpoint in the value chain:
The brand must resonate.
The brand must differentiate.
The brand must substantiate.
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Now that the dust has settled some after this year’s U.S. Presidential election, a critical imperative for brand marketers stands out. For all the hoopla of late about data, digital, diversity and nudges, none of these much-ballyhooed marketing innovations matter until old-timey fundamentals have been taken care of first.
President Obama’s successful reelection campaign is a reminder that whatever you’re selling or how, it starts with the most basic thing of all – a great brand positioning.
The stories hot off the presses about Obama’s success have focused on the nifty new stuff. The data and digital angle has emphasized the campaign’s high-tech use of Big Data and the predictive models developed to classify and prioritize voters for fund raising, ad targeting and get-out-the-vote efforts. The diversity angle has focused on Obama’s disproportionate margins among the nation’s fastest growing demographic groups, particularly Hispanics (and the challenges this presents going forward for the Republican party). The nudges angle has highlighted the campaign’s utilization of insights from behavioral economists and social psychologists about the best ways to persuade and motivate people. But these stories, while true, overlook the most important element of Obama’s campaign.
In a New York Times op-ed the day after the election, Obama’s lead pollster, Joel Benenson, took exception to these narrowly focused accounts of the campaign’s success. As he put it, “the president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics.” Or to put it in brand marketing terms, a great brand positioning.
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