Positioning Guide #18

If the number one brand in a category already owns the motivating benefit for the category, don’t challenge it by claiming the same benefit.

The number one brand in a category is the number one brand because it already owns the motivating benefit for a majority of the category’s customers.  Look for a target segment that wants something else, another benefit.  Yes, that segment will be smaller than the majority segment.  Content yourself with a smaller market share; you’ve already lost the battle for the majority segment.

An example of challenging the established number one in a product category:  Why has Coke, with all their marketing expertise and money, been unsuccessful in knocking off Gatorade as the number one brand of sports drink with their PowerAde brand? 

 Because Gatorade owns the motivating benefit in the sports drink category – winning.  Gatorade owns the motivating benefit of winning through years of marketing investment in sports properties.  They have invested to the extent that the brand has become part of American culture with its association with winners.  What happens to the football coach of the winning team?  He gets an ice cooler full of Gatorade dumped over his head at the end of the game.

So if you drink Gatorade, you’re a winner.  Then who drinks PowerAde?  That’s right, losers.  Gatorade not only owns the motivating benefit in the category, its ownership blocks competitors for successfully competing in the category.

Positioning Guide #17

Two keys to successful brand positioning are simplicity and consistency.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Al Ries should be feeling very flattered right now as this guide has been lifted from his contributions to marketing.

Simplicity:  Most marketers are too deeply involved in their product category to view it as naively and simplistically as does their target consumer.  When thinking about the promise that is the unique brand benefit, we want to write something exceedingly clever … something no one else has ever thought of.  We often want to be “creative.”  We want to write an advertising theme line or slogan.  Advertising theme lines are a task that should be left to your advertising agency.  Marketers should concentrate on (a) perfecting their marketing strategy – segmentation, targeting, and positioning; (b) on developing marketing mix tactics that are consistent with their marketing strategy; (c) and on executing those marketing mix tactics well.

The result of marketers playing advertising agency creative is usually a theme line that sounds good but fails to communication their brand’s unique brand benefit.  Find the unique brand benefit in the following list of theme lines:

Inspire the next.  Hitachi

The Right Technology. Right Away. CDW

Instruments for Professionals.  Breitling watches

Advance.  Acura

An American Revolution.  Chevrolet

Get There.  Goodyear

Passion for excellence.  Bridgestone

While all of these theme lines contain nice words, none of them directly convey the brand’s unique brand benefit.

Now consider the simplicity of these theme lines, all of which are built around the brand’s unique brand benefit:

      Change.  Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign

The Ultimate Driving Machine.  BMW

The Best a Man Can Get.  Gillette

Save Money. Live Better.  Wal-Mart

Live richly.  Citibank

Consistency:  How long has BMW been The Ultimate Driving Machine?  Since 1975.  How long has Maytag used the Maytag repairman to communicate durability?  Since 1967.  These are examples of consistency in brand positioning and in marketing communications. 

Contrast the examples of BMW and Maytag with efforts of Chevrolet.  Chevrolet, prior to the restructuring of General Motors, evidently believed in long last advertising agency relationships, which is a good thing, as Campbell Ewald  was their agency for over 80 years.  Unfortunately, it appears that neither Chevrolet nor Campbell Ewald believed in long last brand positioning, advertising slogans, nor brand positioning.  Since Diana Shore first sang See the USA in Your Chevrolet on network television in the 1950’s, Chevy has bounced from one advertising slogan to another:

See the USA in Your Chevrolet (1954)

1 USA (1957)

The road isn't built that can make it breathe hard! (1957)

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet (1975)

The Heartbeat of America (1986)

Like a Rock (1991)

Genuine Chevrolet (1994)

An American Revolution (2003)

Another example of lack of consistency is Pepsi-Cola.  Since 1975, the brand has visited and revisited the concept that Pepsi is a brand for youthful consumers.  Unfortunately, they’ve confused their target consumers with tangential visits to with vague consumer benefits:

For Those Who Think Young (1975)

Have a Pepsi Day (1978)

Catch the Pepsi Spirit (1980)

Pepsi’s Got Your Taste for Life (1982)

Pepsi Now (1983)

The Choice of a New Generation (1984)

A Generation Ahead (1989)

Gotta Have It (1992)

Be Young. Have Fun. Drink Pepsi (1993)

Nothing Else is a Pepsi (1995)

The Joy of Cola (1999)

For Those Who Think Young (2002)

Generation Next (2002)

Think Young. Drink Young (2003)

It’s the Cola (2007)

Changing unique brand benefits and advertising campaigns frequently leads to “confused positioning.”  Consumers learn through repetition.  When the same message is repeated over and over again, consumer learn to associate the brand with its claimed unique brand benefit.  When the message changes frequently, consumers end up confused.  We think of Pepsi as being the number two cola beverage after Coca-Cola; but recently, it slipped to the number three position with Diet Coke taking the number two spot.  Could this be the result of confused positioning?

Positioning Guide #16

Innovation and technology are not customer benefits.

Many companies want to be the technology leader, the innovator in the category.  This is part of tech companies’ DNA and is probably confirmed by corporate vision or mission statement or a graphic like the one to the left.  Note the logic of this graphic – if the firm innovates and then communications, it will be successful in the market place.  I think that there are a few things missing in this graphic such as definition of a target market segment, brand positioning, distribution, pricing, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be an innovator if one recognizes that there are challenges associated with being an innovator:

1.    Innovation Cost Money.  A firm’s devotion to innovation usually causes it to spend proportionally more on research and development than competitors.  This is one of the factors that usually causes such companies to be the high cost competitor in their product category.  If the product category is mature, the company may be headed for trouble as one of the keys to competiting in mature product categories is to be a low-cost producer.

2.    Innovators bear most the cost of innovation but share the rewards of innovation with fast followers:  Recall the concept of the product life cycle which is shown to the right.  In the development and introduction stages, there is only one competitor – the innovator.  Unfortunately for the innovator, these are the two stages where investments are heavy and there are little or no revenues.  A product category's profits tend to peak between the growth and maturity stages so that fast followers share the rewards of innovation without the cost penalty of the innovator.

3.    Innovators believe that innovation is a guarantee of long term business success.  I don't share this belief.  If one studies business history, one is likely to conclude that it is the fast follower rather than the innovator who is going to be the winner in the marketplace.  Whether one is an innovator or a fast follower, academic studies have concluded that it takes adequate marketing to insure long term business success.

Innovation is not a customer benefit.  While it is true that customer benefits may stem from innovation; innovation itself is not a customer benefit.  Thus, at best, innovation may be a benefit support.
If you work for a company that prides itself on innovation and you disagree with the statement that innovaton is not a customer benefit, leave me a comment.  All comments are welcome!

Positioning Guides #14 & #15

Positioning Guide #14:  Low price is not a brand benefit.

Positioning Guide #15:  There should never be a reference to price in a brand position statement.

Too often marketers will include a reference to low price in a brand positioning statement.  The brand position defines the unique brand benefit that your brand is going to deliver to your target customers.  You’ve validated through research that your unique brand benefit motivates your target customers to consider your brand.  Don’t confuse yourself and others who read your brand positioning template by including a reference to price.

Sometimes a brand position which includes a reference to price is referred to as a “value” position.  All brand positions that have a unique brand benefit that motivates target customers to consider the brand are “value” positions.  The value that you deliver to your target customers is your unique brand benefit.

Price is not part of brand positioning.  It is part of the marketing mix.  After your target customers believe that your brand delivers your unique brand benefit, the marketing mix question becomes what are they willing to pay to get the benefit that your brand delivers?

The danger in including a reference to price in the brand position is that it will become the primary focus of tactical execution.  Give an advertising agency a summary brand positioning statement that contains a reference to low price, and that’s what they’ll emphasize in the creative product.  The unique brand benefit will be relegated to a secondary role and the creative will be full of star bursts emphasizing low price.

Wal-Mart’s old themeline was “Lowest prices … always.”  If you had asked Wal-Mart executives what their unique brand benefit was, they’d probably would have said “lowest prices.”  However, the Wal-Mart brand is much richer than just offering low prices.  Wal-Mart delivers of number of retail attributes for which mid-America is looking … friendliness through the greeter, known and trusted brand names, wide selection in many product categories, liberal return policy, etc.  Wrap all of these retail attributes into a single brand attribute and you have trust.  Mid-America trusts Wal-Mart.  Moreover, they can do business with their trusted retailer and get a good deal.

 

Wal-Mart’s change of themelines to “Pay less. Live Better.” comes closer to following marketing ground rules.  Yes, they still have the reference to price in the themeline, but they have the reason that their target customers are willing to sacrifice service and tolerate long lines to get Wal-Mart’s low prices in the “Live Better.”  In the upcoming pricing section of this blog you’ll learn that all consumers want the most for their money.  Why?  So that they can live better on the income that they have.  “Live Better” is a unique brand benefit that motivates the Wal-Mart target customer.  Reflecting back to this blog’s discussion of consumer wants/needs and my belief that Maslow’s hierarchy is a pretty good model for those wants/needs, I don’t know where “Live Better” fits into Maslow’s hierarchy; but I’m sure that it’s in there somewhere.

Target is argued by some to be the best marketer of all three of the discount retailers.  Target gives its target customers fashion and style at a low price.  The product benefits are fashion and style which satisfy some social and/or ego needs.  Since all consumers want the most for their money, Target gives them the fashion and style that they are seeking for a low price.  Again to referring to Maslow’s hierarchy, fashion and style are probably social motivators or possibly ego motivators.  See how all of this stuff fits together?

That’s it for this week.  I’ve been blogging now for about eight months and have yet to receive a single comment.  The stats say that people are reading this blog.  Whoever you are, leave me a comment so I’ll know that this stuff isn’t disappearing into cyberspace.

Positioning Guide #13

In business to business marketing, a brand’s unique brand benefit should be economic.

It’s amazing how many business to business marketers obfuscate the value that they deliver to their target customers.  Businesses are economically motivated; they want to make money.  Even not-for-profit enterprises want to operate as efficiently as possible.  Thus, business to business marketers need to tell their target business customers how their unique brand benefit will increase the customer’s revenue and/or decrease their costs. 

Despite the simplicity of economic appeal in business to business marketing, business to business marketers often speak obtusely about the value they are delivering.  A currently popular phrase is “solutions provider”. A quick Google search will show 5.5 million matches for the phrase “solutions provider.”  The business customer will dismiss such appeals without even remembering them because the phrase is both vague and empty.  Solutions to what?  It doesn’t answer how the marketer is going to make the customer’s business more profitable.

Vague statements of providing value are also common in business to business marketing.  A Google search on the phrase “we deliver value” yields 43,500 hits.  However, few of these marketers are able to quantify in dollar amount the value that they deliver to their customers.  A good unique brand benefit for business to business marketers say that the marketer is going to saving the customer money and/or help the customer generate more revenue.  The challenge of business to business brand positioning is to express this brand benefit in a unique way.

Positioning Guide 12

Product benefits often serve as benefit supports for a brand benefit.

Marketers in all product categories fall in love with their products.  As a result of this love of product, they want to talk about their products more than end-users want to hear about their products.  And often they forget to tie the product benefits to the brand benefit.

As an example, Ford stylists and marketers expected the second generation of Tarus to be a success because of the oval styling.  They proudly said that the side sculpting of the vehicle when viewed directly from the side with overhead lighting produced an oval shadow on the side.  How many consumers noticed?  Not enough to make the model a marketplace success.

One of my favorite example brands is Pantene Pro V shampoo.  The target customers are women, and what do women want out of a shampoo?  Beautiful shiny hair.  Why do women want beautiful shiny hair?  So that they’ll get hugs and kisses from attractive people.  Hugs and kisses from attractive people (social want/need) is the root motivating benefit for this product category.  Pantene Pro V is vitamin enriched which contributes to healthy hair.  If Pantene Pro V stopped at healthy hair, they would just be stating a product benefit and healthy hair doesn’t directly lead to hugs and kisses from attractive people.  So Pantene Pro V goes one step further with the theme-line, “For hair so healthy it shines.”  An example commercial for this brand may be found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxswBtKkKUE

If you’ve read my biography on the blog home page, you saw that I spent many years doing marketing in the tire category.  One of the best product launches that I saw in my career was for a consumer passenger tire name the Michelin HydroEdge (following the game rule of good names are suggestive of use or benefit).  At that time, the unique brand benefit of the Michelin brand was security of the family (social want/need)/  Michelin trains its salespeople in feature / advantage / benefit selling.  The benefit, however, is a product benefit, not a brand benefit.  Nevertheless, marketing people can focus on those product benefits which support the brand benefit of security. Here are a couple of examples of product benefits of the Michelin HydroEdge that support the unique brand benefit of security:

Moving from the consumer product category to the business-to-business product category, the Michelin X One commercial truck tire has product features/advantages/ benefits that directly support an economic brand benefit of increasing the end-user’s revenue.  In some trucking vocations, such as bulk hauling, vehicles reach their weight limit before the vehicle is full.  If the tires and wheels weigh less, then the operator can carry more cargo thereby increasing revenue.  To demonstrate the weight savings of the Michelin X One over a set of dual tires in tractor and trailer application, the marketing people have developed the chart below.

Note that this example stops with the product benefit of weight savings.  Target end-users will be forced to make the translation of weight savings > carry more cargo > make more money.  The impact of this chart would be increased if some dollar amounts reflecting “make more money” were included.  While it would be best to have dollar amounts which could be generalized to all target end-users, a testimonial could serve the same purpose.

Positioning Guide #11

While a brand should have one, and only one, unique brand benefit, it may have many benefit supports.

Benefit supports to some advertising people are called “permissions to believe.”  They are specifics to which marketers can point to make their claim of a brand benefit believable to target end-users.  They may be product features/advantages/benefits, endorsements, testimonials … anything that makes your unique brand benefit believable to your target customers.  Recall from Positioning Guide #7 that you should constrain yourself to only one unique brand benefit; however, you can list as many benefit supports as you wish.

Most marketers find it difficult to constrain themselves to one unique brand benefit.  If something is good, they want to claim it for their brand.  Be disciplined and focus on only one unique brand benefit.  Shift the urge to claim more than one unique brand benefit to your benefit supports and develop compelling supports that make your unique brand benefit believable to your target customers.

Positioning Guide #10

In consumer marketing, a brand with unique brand benefit which satisfies a higher order want/need in Maslow’s hierarchy will have fewer competitive substitutes than a brand with a unique brand benefit which satisfies a lower order want/need.

Returning to the sports drink category to illustrate this guide, all sports drinks promise to quench thirst.  This satisfaction of thirst is a basic physiological want/need.  There are many competitive substitutes which could also quench thirst: water, juice, beer, etc.  A brand position which promises to satisfy a lower order want/need will find itself open to many competitive substitutes.

Some sports drinks promise to provide extra energy.  While just providing energy is the satisfaction of a physiological want/need, providing extra energy is probably the satisfaction of safety wants/needs.  So what competitive substitute in the beverage category could also provide the value of extra energy?  Anything with sugar.  Still lots of competitive substitutes.

Gatorade promises to make its target customers winners.  With all of their marketing investment in sports over the years, they have become closely associated with the attribute of winning.  So much so that Gatorade has become part of American culture with everyone expecting the the coach of the winning Super Bowl team will have the iced cooler of Gatorade dumped on him at the end of the game.  What competitive substitute in the beverage category will satisfy the ego want/need of being a winner.  The answer is nothing. 

Positioning Guide #9 told us that a product benefit is not a brand benefit.  If a marketer focuses on product benefits, such as “quenches thirst” or “provides extra energy”, your saying that your brand satisfies a lower order want/need in Maslow’s hierarchy.  Your target customer knows that there are a variety of products and brands that could satisfy that lower order want/need.  Marketers who focus on product benefits aren’t giving their target customers a reason to consider their brands.

Positioning Guide 9

A product benefit is not a brand benefit.

A product benefit is what your product does.  When you talk about product benefits to end-users, they have to mentally translate the product benefit into what internal want/need the product benefit satisfies.  If you work in a given product or service category, you are more involved with and knowledgeable about your product or service than your target customer.  For you, the translation from product benefit to satisfied internal want/need seems to be an easy bridge to build.  However, you’re asking your target customer to do mental work in building that bridge, and your target customer doesn’t want to work.  Your product/service category and your brand isn’t important enough to your target customers warrant the mental work that it takes to build bridges in their minds.

As an example, an automobile manufacturer whose brand is associated with safety/security says that their car’s four wheel drive will give you “better traction when the going gets tough” thinking that the target customer will translate that product benefit into satisfaction of the internal want/need for security.  However, target customers think “better traction” is good, but will fail to translate the product benefit into the satisfaction of their safety/security wants/needs.

Let’s assume that the message “better traction” in this example registers with your target customers.  If a marketing researcher were to probe what “better traction” means to the target customers, I believe that the target customers would respond with something generic, such as, “I can keep going.”  In other words, the car is giving them the product benefit that they expect from a car – transportation or mobility.  This is the generic benefit of the product category and doesn’t differentiate the brand from other automotive brands. 

Too many marketers fall into the product benefit trap of more, better, bigger, faster.  They know that a given product attribute is important to their target consumers so they perform rigorous product testing against their competitors’ products.  They want to substantiate a claim of more or better or bigger or faster.  Their competitors are doing exactly the same thing.  One marketer will claim 20% more, the next will claim 15% faster, etc.  Who does the target consumer believe when presented with conflicting claims?  No one. 

We call our brand benefit a unique brand benefit.  If your messaging is claiming more, better, bigger, faster, your benefit isn’t unique.  You’re claiming the same thing as your competitors; you’re just claiming more, better, bigger, faster of the same thing.

Positioning Guide 8

In consumer marketing, your brand’s unique brand benefit should specify how your brand will satisfy the internal wants/needs of your target customer.

If you will recall Maslow’s Hierarchy from the “What is Marketing?” portion of this blog, we used the hierarchy as a concept for understanding consumers’ wants/needs.  If we use Maslow’s Hierarchy and Colgate Total as examples, Colgate Total promises to deliver the benefit of total protection.  We all want to be protected, and one might think that this unique brand benefit satisfies a portion of the safety wants/needs of Colgate Total’s target customers.  But the target customer for family toothpaste is Mom, and Mom wants to protect her family.  Protection of family is probably a social need.  The unique brand benefit of total protection satisfies a portion of the target customers’ social wants/needs.  Total protection is the value that Colgate Total promises to deliver to its target customers.

In the sports drink category, Gatorade through its historical marketing investments with winning teams and winning athletes has established itself as the brand for winners.  The need to be a winner is an ego want/need.  The value that Gatorade delivers to its target customers is that Gatorade will make them a winner.

Gatorade is an excellent example of brand positioning.  Not only has does it own the motivating benefit in the product category, the ownership of “winning” blocks other competitors in the category. That is, since Gatorade is the brand of winners, who buys the other brands in the category?  Losers!

Positioning Guide 7

A brand should stand for one, and only one, unique brand benefit.

This game rule was expressed by Ries and Trout, but it was understood even before the concept of brand positioning was widely accepted.  The master of 1950’s hard-sell advertising was Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates agency.  Reeves advocated the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP (Rosser Reeves, Reality in Advertising (New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1961).  His classic television work for Anacin, Listerine, Colgate toothpaste, and Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential campaign continuously repeated the USP for those brands.  Today, advertising people continue to speak of the USP; however, marketing people refer to their brand’s unique brand benefit.  USP -- unique brand benefit, same thing.

Double Benefit Positioning --Sometimes marketers take multiple product attributes or product benefits and wrap them together into a single unique brand benefit or USP.  In almost all beverage categories, the top-of-mind response to the question, “Why do you drink that beverage?” is “I like the taste.”  Moreover, most beverage categories are 80/20 categories. That is, the 20% of the market who are heavy users consume 80% of the category volume.  Soft drinks, dairy products, bottle water, and beer all follow this pattern.  Ask beer drinkers why they drink beer, and they invariably respond that they like the taste.  Miller Lite was a fast follower in the reduced calorie beer category.  The innovator of reduced calorie beer was Tromer’s Red Letter which was introduced in the 1960’s.  The problem with reduced calorie beer was that the category is a male dominated category.  Heavy beer drinkers tend to be men.  A reduced calorie label provokes imagery of a beer for women in the minds of the heavy beer drinking male.  In 1973, to overcome this girly imagery of reduced calorie beer, Miller introduced Lite using male sports celebrities. With the classic themeline, “tastes great/less filling,” Miller Lite established itself as “everything you always wanted in a beer – and less.”  Take the two product attributes, tastes great and less filling, combine them, and they equal one proposition that is very important to heavy beer drinkers … they can drink more of it.

Multiple Benefit Positioning -- Another example of wrapping multiple attributes into a single unique brand benefit is Colgate Total toothpaste.  The largest segment in the toothpaste category consists of mothers who want protection, an internal want/need, for their families.  For 50 years Proctor & Gamble dominated the category in the U.S. with its Crest.  Crest was the first brand with fluoride and the endorsement of the American Dental Association.  It promised cavity protection which was exactly the benefit that mothers wanted; they wanted to protect their families.  Then Colgate introduced its Colgate Total brand which contains an antibacterial ingredient, Triclosan, in addition to fluoride.  Triclosan prevents gingivitis, plaque, tartar, and bad breath; while the fluoride prevents cavities.  Colgate Total promises mothers one unique brand benefit, Total Protection.  While Crest offers mothers protection, Colgate Total offers them total protection.  Which do you think mothers would buy?  Colgate Total gained the number one spot in the toothpaste category in the U.S. 

More recently Crest has responded with its Crest Pro Health brand extension which contains stannous fluoride and sodium hexametaphosphate.  The claims for Crest Pro Health are very similar to those for Colgate Total.  It’s too early to say which brand will be the longer term leader in the category.

Stretching the Brand Position -- Some European marketers tend to stretch their brands much further than do most U.S. marketers.  As an example, in the U.S. Mercedes-Benz is known for its well engineered luxury cars.  If one probes Mercedes-Benz owners, the brand attributes of well engineered and luxury probably translate to unique brand benefits of prestige and/or comfort.  The U.S. product offering consists of sedans, coupes, convertibles, roadsters, SUVs, and wagons.  In Europe, there are additional offerings: at the low priced end in their consumer products, the A and B classes; and for businesses, a complete line of commercial vehicles.  Mercedes Benz USA has not included these models in their product offering as they know that they would tend to erode the luxury image of the brand among Americans.