MarketerBlog

Marketing Artifacts: Brand Positioning Statements?

I recently struck up a conversation with a group of friends and former colleagues who are branding experts.  I’m working with a new company and wanted some examples of positioning statements.  The responses I received were intriguing.  A handful of folks sent examples.  One response from a VP of Global Branding was contrarian.

I have come to feel that positioning statements are mostly a waste of time and energy unless they are amazingly concise and contain 1 idea. The whole P&G  ‘For (target audience) who (list of needs) we provide (benefit) (benefit) benefit) because only we provide (reason to believe’ pro forma statement construct seems woefully cumbersome today and very communications brief driven.
 
3-5 great attributes you want your brand to stand for/represent seems to lead to better creative briefs and ergo better creative work both in terms of communication and product/service design than positioning statements.

Wow!  This from a guy who’s spent much of his career wrestling with these issues with F500 brands.   One of our colleagues, who spends his days shepherding marketing for technology startup companies, responded as follows:

Name these companies:
 
1) The computer for the rest of us
 
2) Networking networks
 
3) The world's information in one click
 
4) Personal video broadcasting network
 
These are not tag-lines. The companies who expressed these words successfully positioned the value proposition and differentiation within a simple ‘one-liner’. Founders and executives delivered these one-liners to everyone who would listen and whom they needed to fold into the cause – investors, landlords, lawyers, recruits, customers, and partners.

And yet another response (from someone who’s a hybrid technology/marketing guru) provided another dimension:

Information today flows every which way. 

The "shape" of the brand in the minds of customers may be more varied now.

Some percent of the variation is not good, but some may very well be.

Over-constraining the ‘position’ with too much specificity would not reduce variation (provide management control) anyway.

Therefore craft a simple, succinct statement that does a better job of absorbing or exploiting complexity (variation) rather than avoiding it.

So it seems the positioning statement is not going the way of the Dodo bird.  But it has evolved to something more practical.  In a world where brands are verbs instead of nouns, positioning statements have become the headlines that encapsulate the action instead of static monuments to marketing discipline.  The exercise of designing a “classic” positioning statement is often a good one … it forces focus on critical marketing issues (audience/target market, competition, differentiators, etc.).  But the result needs to be the brand experience, not a couple of awkwardly constructed sentences that collect dust in the marketing department.

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Brand, Marketing, Positioning Statement

To Ford CEO: Welcome to the 21st Century

To the CEO of Ford: Alert! Assembly-line marketing tactics don’t cut it in the era of the digital, empowered consumer.

Ford is launching a new series of ads starring its CEO, William Clay Ford Jr., in the role of corporate apologist. According to an article in today’s New York Times, Ford is using the spots to make the case for a corporate comeback to consumers. How retro of them. It takes me back to the days of Lee Iacocca hawking K-cars in an attempt to restore Chrysler’s image among consumers. 

There are, however, two critical differences. In the spots which debuted in 1979, Iacocca spoke about the cars, and pitched the value of the car not the company. In other words, he focused on the things consumers care about. His message was relevant. According to the Times, the new Ford ads focus on the restructuring plan Mr. Ford presented to Wall Street on Monday. It’s not clear how news of layoffs and factory closings build consumer affinity for a brand. 

A greater difference though is the nature of the media environment. When Chrysler took to the airwaves in the late ‘70’s they could rest assured that a strategic buy in prime time addressed a majority of their target market. Direct-to-consumer marketing as we know it today wasn’t practiced. We didn’t have hundreds of cable channels and millions of blogs. 

Ford could take a lesson from other automotive brands and engage with consumers directly. BMW is using a “virtual innovation agency” to harness the creativity of its customers and solicit ideas for product design. Lexus is using a microsite and podcasts to promote their IS sports sedan to African Americans. And there are many other examples of carmakers collaborating with consumers to better understand preferences, shape product design and influence purchase. 

Active, engaged consumers are delighted to offer feedback and to help spread the word. As Joerg Reimann, BMW’s head of marketing innovation management put it: “They were so happy to be invited by us, and that our technical experts were interested in their ideas … they didn't want any money.”

Henry Ford pioneered modern industrial manufacturing through his innovative use of assembly lines over a hundred years ago. It’s time for his successors to be equally innovative and to embrace consumer generated media as a source of market insights and opportunities.

Pajamas Media: How Not to Name a Company

The management team at Pajamas Media has taken a lot of heat over the past week and rightly so.  There’s been chatter in the blogosphere and their naming-renaming saga even hit the so-called mainstream media yesterday.  While most of the criticism missed the point, Jeff Jarvis made some astute observations.  The central question for Pajamas Media isn’t the name, it’s the business.  They missed the essential steps of defining the business and the business model, and articulating the positioning to support that before they hired a naming consultant. 

As a “web 2.0” company it appears they fell prey to some classic “web 1.0” mistakes.  They grew starry-eyed with investor’s money and (apparently) spent more time planning their launch party at the Rainbow Room than working on their business strategy.  (And by the way, a launch party at the Rainbow Room with Judy Miller?  Exactly how many bloggers hang around the Rainbow Room these days?)

My advice to Pajamas Media is to focus on what you do and do it well.  If the collection of blogs has some equity under the name Pajamas Media then stick with that.  If there are legitimate business reasons to make a change for heaven’s sake do your homework.  It’s a stretch to believe that a “branding company” recommended a name that was already in use in the same sector.  But that’s no excuse for management not doing its own reality check.

And if all else fails you can always refer to my handy guide for naming your next company. 

The Positioning Statement – The Essence of Marketing?

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about the process for naming a company.  This week I thought I’d focus on one particular element of naming:  positioning.  A great positioning statement articulates the essence of a company.  As the ancients would have said, it’s the “eidos” of a company.  All evidence to the contrary, I did in fact suffer the slings and arrows of a classical liberal arts education.  I’m not going to make the mistake of trying to define the word “eidos” here.  I will assure you, however, that this Wikipedia definition is off the mark.  And I’ll make a plea for some assistance from my more erudite colleagues.  We need to harness the wisdom of someone who’s actually seen beyond the back of the cave to define/describe that concept.

Before you can choose a name or build a brand, you have to figure out what you are (and are not) and the process of creating a positioning statement often helps a company do just that.  There are several critical questions to ask when crafting a positioning statement.

Ÿ         Who is your intended audience or market?

Ÿ         What is the motivation – e.g. need, problem or opportunity the brand intends to fulfill?

Ÿ         What is your business, product or service?

Ÿ         What is the benefit – e.g. how does the brand deliver a relevant and emotionally compelling experience?

Ÿ         What differentiates it – what are the functional benefits and personality that combine to make the brand distinctive?

In the Consumer Generated-Open Source-Web 2.0 marketing environment the media really has become the message or in this case the brand.  The Janus-like nature of users (who both consume and create) means that every interaction becomes part of the brand.  The CGM-savvy marketer needs to identify brand advocates by engaging in the process of Active Listening.  This process synthesizes traditional consumer insights techniques/resources with learning from Consumer Generated Media to identify and describe the “center of gravity” for your brand, product or service, and the relevant networks of active producer-participants.  Their conversations and interactions will help build your brand.

The positioning statement is the strategic framework in which to consider naming options and to create a visual and verbal identity system – the early steps of brand building.  So it’s critical to get it right, and it’s one of the hardest things for a company to do.  It’s easy to get caught up in meaningless jargon or to end up talking to yourself (or your competitors).  To prevent that, test your positioning statement with the following criteria:

Ÿ         Is it credible – will people believe it?

Ÿ         Is it relevant – will people care about the premise?

Ÿ         Is it unique – can you legitimately own this, and will people see it as distinctive?

Ÿ         It is sustainable and leveragable – will it enable the brand to stand the test of time?

To quote Jerry Blanton’s comment on my original naming post:

“It should be crafted with care and with simplicity in mind and err on the side of real words versus mumbo jumbo.  Does your positioning statement have phrases like "solutions provider, "best of breed" or "a leading company"?  Take them out. They neither differentiate you from your competition nor do they actually mean ANYTHING. You won't have lost anything; quite the opposite, you may end up with real words that mean something to you and your employees.”

Thanks Jerry, I couldn’t have positioned it better myself.

Forget Marketing Alchemy: The Realist's Process for Naming a Company

I recently received an email from a friend and colleague who’s about to launch her next startup.  She made a comment about how ridiculous it was for early stage companies to spend tens of thousands of dollars on naming consultants, when the practically realities of finding a name that’s available and affordable often renders their creative concoctions superfluous.   She’s right.

Brands are tricky, and particularly in technology-based businesses where we’re often inventing new categories and markets.  But the options for a CEO of an early stage company are actually fairly straightforward.  So at the risk of offending my friends in the branding business, I’m going to attempt to demystify this process. 

Here’s what you need to do to name an early stage company:

1)  Figure out who you are and who you want to be.

Take a clear, unbiased look at your company, your market, your competitors, and your targeted customer segments.  Answer two critical questions:  what distinguishes your business from your competitors/comparables, and what’s the mindset of your high value customers?  Your answers should be both rational and emotional.  Brands (particularly consumer brands) have both logical underpinnings and evocative personal attributes.  Ultimately your brand needs to reflect the personality of your company, your culture and your vision for future success.

2)  Avoid talking to yourself.

Rely on your instincts and your insights about the market and your opportunity.  You live and breathe this idea, and will have spent more time thinking about it than anyone else.  But be sure to offset this with savvy opinions from well-informed outsiders.  A little bit of market research can go a long way here.  You don’t have to do an exhaustive (and expensive) study.  There are many resources available for modest fees, and even some good work published free online from organizations like Pew’s Internet & American Life Project.  While there’s a certain amount of self-selection bias in the results, quick-and-dirty online focus groups can help to fill in specifics related to your particularly market opportunity.  Listen to your customers and market before you start getting creative. 

3)  Write your positioning statement … and don’t confuse it with a tag line.

This is probably one of the singularly most difficult efforts for any organization.  A good positioning statement is a well-worded, verbal representation of your company. It’s the foundation for your marketing strategy and the platform for your communications programs. It clearly articulates the definition of your business, what differentiates it from your competitors, your target market, and the benefits delivered to your target market.  It reflects both the character and culture of your company.   It’s okay if it’s a little awkward – it’s not a tag line or advertising copy.  But it needs to be credible, relevant, unique and able to stand-up over time.

4)  Do a reality check before you get carried away with cool ideas.

Once you’ve got some rough concepts for names, do a preliminary URL and trademark search.  You want to avoid getting too attached to something you realistically can’t have.  Compare your concepts to the names of your competitors.  You should make sure your name stands out – in a good way.  Test the name in a variety of applications.  Try writing a board brief or looking at it on a PowerPoint slide or on a web page and see if it’s easy to use, and if it’s not, think about ways you might modify it.  For example, it’s awkward to use a name that begins with lowercase letters or ends in punctuation.  Having said that, two of the top online brands are examples of this:  eBay and Yahoo!.  Sometimes these names work really well, but be forewarned, it takes a lot of time and money to build these kinds of brands.

5)  Think about your brand as a verb, not a noun.

Ross Mayfield made this comment about the Web in a recent blog post, but I’ve been saying it for years about brands.  Brands are customer commitments.  Your brand image is conveyed through every single customer contact, from your advertising, to your web site to the way your receptionist answers the phone.  Over the past decade, increased media fragmentation and rising consumer expectations has made this perspective even more important.  The Web 2.0 marketing environment makes it critical.  (N.B.:  ironically Web 2.0 can’t even define itself though John Hagel makes a valid attempt in his current blog post.)  So as you think about your name and your brand, think about it in the active voice, not as a passive place or thing.

Bottom line:  you probably have most of what you need to create a name and brand for your company. You’ll want some outside help, to enhance your own thinking and to mitigate the risk of being too insular.  And of course you’ll need some great creative talent to dimensionalize your brand, as a logo and with things like a type family, copy voice and various graphic systems (both print and digital).  Your brand is an investment.  Current valuations for top brands add millions to corporate balance sheets.  But start simple … and be realistic.