How to Turn Positioning Pain into Brand Gain
As a marketer who runs an agency that focuses solely on brand strategy and campaigns, it never ceases to amaze me how challenging the process of developing a brand’s positioning can be.
While I don’t claim to have the hindsight or statistical evidence of our industry’s powerhouses and academics (the Ritson’s and Sharp’s), I do have 20 years under the belt, working for some of Australia’s most infamous brands and smaller scale SMEs. And I tell you, while there are differences in the size and operation of these businesses, there’s some very common themes and poor habits that arise when grappling with the concept of positioning:
No one wants to take a stand (and by that I don’t mean peace and love on earth, rather a simple decision about where to play, and not to play). FOMO is PROLIFIC. I once even had a client tell me once I was discriminating for wanting to omit a particular target audience. (True story. I had no words).
It’s either too simple or too convoluted. How can ‘simple’ be effective, and 'convoluted' be clear enough to implement? What a waste of time and money.
What’s the best path to positioning? Product, brand, against, for, yesterday, your dry cleaning (in other words, you’ve lost me - let’s divert based on last month’s figures).
Positioning is like the wind. It sways in many directions depending on the day and forecast.
When you’re positioning a brand that doesn’t have an obvious advantage, it’s not as easy to pick a route. Particularly if you’re playing in a market where everyone already seems to be taking up the available white space.
It’s also problematic, because a lack of clear or meaningful positioning can lead to a bigger boardroom battle as the “non-experts” chime in with their POV as you get pulled from pillar to post in search of a quick fix.
So where do you start, or better, how do you set your positioning ambition (or desired brand image) up for success, remembering that if you choose no action, your customer will do it for you.
Firstly, it’s important to note that there’s two types of positioning. Mark Ritson explains it in ‘speeds’. The long and the short. The long being the broad brand positioning, and the short being the segment / service positioning.
Either way, both start with uncovering the opportunity which usually stems from a body of research conducted on the ecosystem in which your brand exists.
Take a walk down memory lane (to understand the origins of your brand - who started it and more importantly, why).
Look at macro impacts (plenty of those right now that can’t be ignored).
Dive into your customer insights.
Company strengths.
Competitor landscape.
Draw inspiration from those who own a position well. What can you learn from them (industry agnostic).
Now pick a lane. Something defensible. Something that you can own. A ‘signature move’.
But you already knew this, because it’s documented in any marketing textbook or online blog.
So what’s our secret to positioning success?
Action.
Positioning unravels when those responsible for implementing it can’t translate it into action (it’s the simple vs convoluted debacle). And when that happens, inaction occurs which is usually the catalyst for the dismissal of your strategy as marketing fluff (followed by your reputation crisis that inevitably follows).
So the holy grail to positioning success from my experience, is one's ability to move it from a few sentences to something of substance.
And you do that... with drama.
Drama?! Yep, through over-egging it. You want your positioning to be perceived legitimately? Amplify it. Make it true. Make it as obvious as you can. In every possible way. Through your products. Through your marketing. Through your customer service. Through your app. Through your employee induction and work milestones. Make it real and true through your actions, not just your marketing, and from the inside of your organisation, out. And do it over, and over, and over, again.
The bigger the impression, the bigger the impact.
Now I know what you’re thinking; budget can outbid any enemy for a ‘share of mind’ regardless of any fandangle positioning (unless of course you’re a true disrupter). And yes, if you spend big consistently and over time, you can probably take out your competitor and claim the top spot (sometimes by default). After all, if people don't know about your brand, how can they know it's better?
But even so, and especially when the playing field is level, you’ve got to stand out. You’ve got to have something that belongs to your brand and none other. Your claim to fame. Your image booster. And you need to take consistent action to reinforce it, to make it believable. Brands that know who they are and the image they seek to own (and take inspired action), have a greater chance of influencing perceptions of their brand.
Sure, you can never fully control how others perceive your brand. But if you don’t try and influence perceptions, you’ll never escape the shackles of short-termism, and short-termism limits growth. The research proves that.
So, next time you develop your positioning (whether new or because it's been non-existent), treat it as a 'project' with a taskforce. A taskforce responsible for policing it. Leading the implementation. Showing that it’s more than an ad campaign. It’s an all-of-team effort, to maximise impact.
And most of all, don't forget to bring the drama!