Ajilal

Brand

Positioning

A concept so simple,

people have difficulty understanding

how powerful it is!

What…

• Positioning is owning a piece of consumer’s mind

• Positioning is not what you do to a product

– It’s what you do to the mind of the prospect

• You position the product in the prospect’s mind

– ‘It’s incorrect to call it Product Positioning’ – Ries & Trout

Examples

• Colgate is Protection

• Lux is Glamour

• Pond’s DFT is Confidence

• Axe is Sexual Attraction

• Gillette is Quality

Why…

The assault on our mind…

• The media explosion

• The product explosion

• The advertising explosion

• So little message gets through that you ignore the

sender and concentrate on the receiver

How…

• The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to

be first

– Xerox, Kodak, Polaroid, Sun TV, The Hindu, F&L

• If you didn’t get into the mind of your prospect

first, then you have a positioning problem

– Better to be first than be best

• In the positioning era, you must, however, be

first to get into the prospect’s mind

How…

• The basic approach is not to create something new or different, but manipulate what’s already in the mind

• To find a unique position, you must ignore conventional logic

• Conventional logic says you find concept inside product– Not true; look inside prospect’s mind

• You won’t find an uncola idea inside 7-up; you find it inside cola drinker’s head

‘You concentrate

on the perceptions of the prospect, not

the reality of the product’- Al Ries & Jack Trout

‘It’s difficult to change behaviour, but

easy to work with it’- Paco Underhill

What you need…

• Understand the role of words and how they affect

people

– Turtle vs. Lexus

• Be careful of change

– Disney

• Need vision

– Long term / Not on technology or fad

What you need…

• Courage

– To slug it out when others watch and wait

• Objectivity

– You need a backboard / a springboard

• Simplicity

– Not complicated or convoluted

What you need…

• Subtlety– Unique position and appeal that’s not narrow

• Willingness to sacrifice– The case of Nyquil

– Rexona wooing male and female

• Patience– Geographical roll out / Demographic /

Chronological

• Global outlook– Taj Mahal tea

Guidelines

• Start by looking not at the product but at the position in the market that you wish to occupy, in relation to competition

• Think about how the brand will answer the main consumer questions– What will it do for me that others will not?

– Why should I believe you?

• Try to keep it short and make every word count and be as specific as possible– Vagueness opens the way to confused

executions

Guidelines

• Keep the positioning up-do-date

– Give as careful consideration to change as you

did to the original statement

• Look for a Key Insight!

– An ‘Accepted Consumer Belief’

What is key insight?

• Key Insight is ‘seeing below the surface’ / ‘seeing inside the consumer’

• Insight expresses the totality of all that we know from seeing inside the consumer

• An insight is a single aspect of this that we use to gain competitive advantage

• By identifying a specific way…– That the brand can either solve a problem or

– Create an opportunity for the consumer

Key Insight

‘I wish to get married

to a handsome prince’

Key Insight

‘Fragrance of my current talc does not last long

and I miss opportunities to enjoy life’

Key Insight

‘Soap leaves my skin

feeling dry and tight’

More on key insight…

• It will require two separate thoughts to be

related to each other in a new and fresh way

• Insight will generally be enduring

• Often the process will lead to several

insights

• The one to use is the one that offers to be

the source of greatest competitive

advantage

More on key insight…

• No need for insight to change if you have

identified the higher-order needs of consumers

• Keep asking ‘why’ to find the real need behind the

obvious insight

• Remember, the insight is always the basis for a

brand’s positioning

How to find one?

• What are the ways in which the category / brand can improve someone’s life?

• What are the conflicting needs that people face and that the brand can solve?

• How important is it that the product delivers? Who will notice?

• What is standard of excellence in the category?

• With every answer you get, you need to probe deeper:– ‘Why is that?’

The 3C’s of positioning

• Be Crystal clear

• Be Consumer-based

– Be relevant and credible to the consumer

– Write in consumer language and from consumer’s view point

• Be Competitive

– Be distinctive

– Focus on building brand elements into powerful discriminator

– Be persuasive

– Be sustainable

And then…

• The brand name!

• The name is the first point of contact between the

message and the mind

• ‘The brand name is a knife that cuts the mind to

let the brand message inside’

– Ries & Trout

Guidelines

• It’s not the goodness or badness of the

name in an aesthetic sense that determines

effectiveness

– It’s the appropriateness of the same

• Name begins the positioning process, tells

the prospect what the product’s major

benefit is

– Fair & Lovely

– Close Up

– Krack

– Head & Shoulders

– Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion

Checklist: Brand name

• Should be simple

• Should be acceptable in all key languages

• Should be appropriate when geographically spread

• Should be amenable for easy registration