Positioning - if you can't be first, be different
Written by Shirley Lichti for The Record, March 21, 2001

How consumers think of your company, its products and its services is all a part of a marketing concept called positioning.

Positioning is believed to represent the single largest influence on a consumer’s decision to buy. It serves as a sort of shorthand, which allows consumers to form opinions on how to evaluate their alternatives and quickly make a choice.

For example, Procter and Gamble positions Tide as a powerful, all-purpose family detergent. At the same time, it positions Cheer for use in all water temperatures.

Consumers are able to easily compare these two different products and choose the best one for their needs.

For marketers, the goal of positioning is to create and occupy a space inside the target customer's head. However, they won't grant you much space. So, it’s important to succinctly define your position and tell them what your unique point of differentiation is compared to competitors.

In the book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Al Ries and Jack Trout argue that, like the memory bank of a computer, the mind has a slot or position for each bit of information it has chosen to retain.

Those slots are arranged like rungs on ladders, the authors say. Companies that own positions on the top rungs of the ladder inevitably are the market share leaders.

The key to positioning is to own one word in your customer’s mind. For example, when you think of Volvo, you think of safety. BMW is associated with performance and Mercedes has become synonymous with luxury.

The easiest way to get into a person’s mind is to be first. Everyone remembers the first person to climb Mount Everest, fly solo across the Atlantic, or walk on the moon. But how many can name the second person?

With all the other marketing challenges you face, you might ask why you should take the time to create a position for your company or it products and services.

The answer to that question is because positioning happens, whether you consciously steer the process or not. And if you don’t take the initiative to create a position, your customers (or worse, your competitors) will do it for you.

Being first in the minds of consumers is not easy. Ries and Trout suggested that if you can’t be first, you should invent a new category.

For example, Dell was not the first company to sell personal computers. But it created a unique position in a crowded marketplace by being the first to sell them by phone.

When it comes to positioning, don’t try to be better than your competition. Try to be different.

Avis knew they could not usurp Hertz as the number one car rental agency in the minds of consumers. So instead of attacking Hertz head-to-head, they admitted they held the second rung on the ladder and came up with the positioning statement, “We try harder.”

Volkswagen announced the original Beetle in North America at a time when Detroit automakers were producing vehicles that were long and streamlined. The Beetle couldn’t have been more different. So Volkswagen built on their differentiation as a small, short, fat and ugly car and came up with the positioning tagline of “Think Small.”

In a market that tries to sugar coat medicine, Buckley’s Cough Mixture took a brutally honest position, stating, “It tastes awful but it works.”

If you are new to the concept of positioning, you should probably read the Trout and Ries book. Written in the late 1970s, it has become one of the top sellers of all time and is still relevant today.

For those who are time-starved, I've provided some tips to at least get you thinking about the positioning process.

Positioning Tips

1. What position do you own now? It may take some research to determine this, but you’ll be better off doing this early in the process so you know what you are up against.

2. What position do you want to own? Note that your desired position cannot already be taken. For example, FedEx owns overnight, Coke owns cola, and Xerox owns copier.

3. Analyse competitors to identify what position they occupy or are trying to own. (Watch for any gaps as these may represent positions you can try to hold.) Look at competitors' ads to determine how they are positioning themselves, for example, ease of use, lowest cost, etc. Think about your position from the viewpoint of competitors as well as from the viewpoint of consumers.

4. Building share of mind is an expensive process. Don’t go head-to-head against your competitor unless you have deep pockets and can stay in the battle for the long haul. (Remember what happened to Corel when it took on Microsoft.)

5. Determine your position and then stick to it. Positioning won’t happen overnight. It’s a cumulative process and takes time.

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