Are you fighting the right (Marketing) battles?

In 1981, Al Ries and Jack Trout released their ground-breaking book entitled "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind".  Their key premise was that to be successful, brands needed to create or reinforce a unique identity in the minds of target customers.  Gone were the days of relying solely on creativity or trying to be everything to everyone.  Consumers were being bombarded with marketing messages making it increasingly difficult to stand out from the noise.  In order to be successful, it was important for companies to differentiate or "position" themselves relative to their competitors in the minds of target customers. Unfortunately, today's marketers sometimes forget this lesson by trying to appeal to everyone or by focusing on their competitors' strengths rather than reinforcing their own.

Fighting the Wrong Battle

In the mid 1990's, I was in the Marketing department at Mercury Marine.  At that time, Yamaha was (and still is) the dominate brand among saltwater boaters because they occupied the "reliability" positioning (something that is important to all boaters but especially those who boat in saltwater).  In order to combat this, Mercury decided to highlight its XK360 aluminum to convince boaters that it, too, was a reliable brand.  XK360 is Mercury's proprietary metal alloy that has a low copper content and, according to the company, is "the most corrosion-resistant aluminum alloy available".  While I am sure this is an excellent material, making it the cornerstone of Mercury's advertising campaign (unsurprisingly) failed to "move the needle".

There were two fundamental problems with the company's approach.  The first was trying to take on Yamaha directly with their key strength - reliability.  According to Reis and Trout, once a perception is established in someone's mind, it is very difficult to change.  And second, corrosion is only loosely related to reliability.  When most people think of what makes a reliable engine, it is more about something happening every time they turn the key and never getting stranded.  Corrosion is not highly associated with this in the minds of most boaters.  Mercury was fighting the wrong battle (reliability) with the wrong weapon (claims regarding their corrosion-resistant metal).

Fortunately for the company, their reputation with saltwater boaters did improve many years later but it was not because of advertising.  Instead, it was the result of a series of successful new product introductions that, over time, led many to conclude that the brand was indeed trustworthy.  (And as a side note, reliability is a difficult thing to prove via advertising since perceptions are usually developed over time through experience.)

Establishing Your Battle Plan

So how do you go about developing a positioning strategy that gives you the greatest chance of victory?  In my view, you need three key ingredients:

Knowledge of Customer Needs

The first thing you need is a keen understanding of what target customers value with respect to your product category.  Using Outboards again as an example, if a company were to focus on styling or appearance, they would be unlikely to win many converts.  While everyone wants a good-looking engine, appearance is way down the list of "needs" vs. other things like reliability, performance, serviceability, etc.

Knowledge of Brand Perceptions

It is also important to know what people think of your brand and your competitors.  In the case of outboards, Yamaha is associated with reliability while Mercury has historically been aligned with performance. According to Reis and Trout, you should try to leverage what people already think about your brand or look for an opening (important area with no clear/positive brand associations) rather than trying to change existing beliefs.  This is not to say that you should never try to change perceptions regarding your brand.  Just recognize that it will take a considerable war chest (budget) and a compelling case (supporting points) to be successful.

Knowledge of Your Relative Strengths

The final piece of the puzzle is to identify the area(s) where you have a competitive advantage.  This is where you need to take an honest look at your business to identify where you can make a compelling case that you are superior to the competition on something that matters to target customers (first item above).

It doesn't necessarily have to be a specific feature or product characteristic.  In fact, you are often better off focusing on higher-level associations such as "benefits" and "values".  I will talk more about this later.

Gathering Intelligence

Some organizations are really in-tune with their market and have the necessary "intelligence" based on their own experiences to establish an effective positioning strategy.  However, it is also common for companies to think they know their market better than they actually do.

For example, I have done many consumer studies at boat shows.  In some cases, I have ease-dropped on a conversation between a dealer and a prospective customer only to interview that same customer afterwards.  And the difference in responses is often night and day.  Much of the time, the customer led the dealer to believe that he was more interested in their brand than he actually was or didn't want to tell the dealer what he really thought of his brand to avoid offending him.  Regardless of the reason, companies often get a distorted view by listening only to the feedback from their internal or dealer sales team.

This is where consumer research can be very helpful.  And, as someone who has been practicing research for nearly four decades, it is my believe that Qualitative research (typically, one-on-one interviews) is usually better for advertising/positioning planning whereas Quantitative research (e.g., online survey) is better to track the performance of advertising efforts.  This is because, Quantitative research, by its very nature, does not leave much room for the unexpected (since you have to anticipate the response choices) and is not very helpful in understanding the "whys" behind the "whats".   This is the domain of Qualitative research.

And one particular Qualitative research technique that is well-suited for advertising/positioning planning is called "Laddering". Laddering is a research technique that seeks to uncover what matters to target customers and identify the linkages between features, benefits and values.  It usually starts with some broad questions to elicit the range of factors that are important to the customer.  This would include questions like: What do you look for when shopping for a new boat?  How do you decide which brand to choose? What factors are most important to you in your purchase decision?  From this, you will typically get a long list of needs or benefits such as “reliability”, “good performance”, “quality dealer” and “reasonably priced”.

The next step is to expand up or drill down on each item mentioned to identify the corresponding “values” or “features/characteristics”.  This is done through a series of “why” or “what” types of questions.  For example, if you ask someone why "reliability" is important to them, they might say things like "safety for my family" or "overall cost of ownership" (i.e., values). Conversely, if you ask what makes you believe that an outboard is reliable, you might hear - "I see a lot of them on the water", "have had good experience with them" or "have a long warranty" (features/characteristics).

This process of expanding up or drilling down enables you to "connect the dots" between specific features or characteristics of your offering with some higher-level benefits/needs or values - either rational or emotional.

Picking Your Battle(s)

Once you are armed with the knowledge of customer needs, brand perceptions and your relative strengths, you are then ready to develop your positioning strategy.  For example, knowing that reliability is important to outboard owners and that Mercury is closely associated with performance, perhaps the brand would have been better off touting how hundreds of guides and professional anglers count on Mercury to get them to their destination and back every time.  In other words, tie reliability to consumer's pre-existing perception of Mercury's performance rather than trying to create a new "reliability" image independently.

The final step is to simply communicate and reinforce your positioning message across all media channels - ads, website, social media, brochures and even point-of-sale materials.  Here, simplicity and consistency are key.  Avoid the temptation of trying to communicate too much or alternating your message from one ad to the next.  This will only diffuse your efforts and weaken your ability to create a distinctive perception in the minds of your target customers.

Have questions about research or Marketing strategy?  Leave a comment or feel free to contact me directly at info@leftbraininc.com.