Are You In The Right Position?

If you’re creating products, or you  provide a service then you ought to take a look at how you are positioned. This is a serious topic so I’m not going to piss around today.

How you have positioned your company and your products determines how much of your competitors advertising noise is going to distract your customers from your own message.

The concept of positioning is about the ideas and opinions that a consumer has formed about your product. Therefore it requires a great deal of attention, because once a consumer has formed an opinion about a product it’s often very difficult to change it.

There’s an endless rush of advertising messages bombarding your customers, every minute of every day. Consumers tend to deal with this information overload by simplifying their thought processes based on previous experiences. They shut out anything that is inconsistent with those experiences.

Therefore to successfully position yourself, use a simple message that is consistent with what your customers are already familiar with. Focus on their existing perceptions rather than the reality of the product or service.

Example: For many years AVIS tried to win customers by pretending that the market leader, Hertz, just didn’t exist. This strategy failed miserably.

Avis finally changed to a new simpler and more consistent message. “Avis is only No.2 in rental cars, so why go with us? We try harder.”

They became profitable soon after launching this campaign and for several reasons.

It isn’t measurable nor relevant if Avis was actually trying harder, but it is consistent with the ideas and beliefs already held by their customers and were finally able to relate Avis to Hertz, who was already positioned as number one.

If a market leader already exists it’s often difficult to displace them in the short term and trying to take them on “head-on” is often a mistake. As this example shows however, there are usually ways to effectively position yourself in relation to them.

The example above also demonstrates another important aspect of positioning. Being the first into a market segment is often enough to claim position as the market leader. We can look at Xerox to emphasise this point.

Xerox was the first plain paper copier company, and sustained this leadership position. Yet in many other cases this company failed to dominate in other categories where it was not the first to market.

If you can’t be first to into your market then finding an unoccupied position is vital to success.

When Volkswagen launched the Beetle they weren’t the first to introduce the small car, but their “Think Small” slogan helped positioned them that way in the mind of consumers.

Similarly, McDonald’s has long held market leadership in the fast food industry and in the minds of consumers. Rather than attempting a head on attack, Hungry Jack’s has repositioned its competitor with the slogan “The burgers are better at Hungry Jack’s“.

Whether the burgers are actually better or  not is of no consequence because the message is consistent with the ideas and experiences already held by the consumers. This tactic is different to comparative advertising where the company simply tries to convince the consumer that the product is better (which often doesn’t work).

The Hungry Jack’s tactic works because it attaches itself to the negative experiences that consumers already hold about the market leader. They make no comparisons or attempts to persuade. They simply state their position in a simple and consistent message.

Positioning applies to products, services and business in the broadest sense. Service providers, product manufacturers, towns and destinations, even your career can benefit from a well developed positioning strategy that targets a niche that is unoccupied in the mind of the consumer.

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