The fine art of positioning

By Edward DiMingo

There is more to positioning than clever slogans and slick ad campaigns. Much more!

Despite the wealth of literature published during the last two decades on the topic, positioning is still the subject of much confusion. There is a clear distinction between true market positioning and its logical antecedent—perceptual positioning.

Yet few marketers and strategic planners are familiar with how to make the process work, how one grows out of the other and how both work in tandem to achieve a common marketing goal.

If done properly, the complex process demands the kind of tough, disciplined analysis and planning that strains every data-gathering, organizational and interpretative tool of even the most sophisticated marketing teams. If confusion and errors creep in, however, something that looks like the language of positioning frequently turns out to be just the language of language.

Examples abound. When a company tried to portray its product as "the Cadillac of the industry" (using a premium strategy for something closer to an Edsel), it put the product in deep trouble from day one. Because the product was so grossly misrepresented, it lost credibility quickly and never recovered.

Although a slogan may portray (i.e., communicate an image of) the company or product, it must grow out of valid positioning homework in order to be successful; otherwise, this image is usually more illusion than reality, more hype than honesty.

Clever slogans, slick logos, weighty promises, and synthesized phrases are not sufficient to sell products to customers who have their own reasons to buy. If customers do buy on the basis of some benefit that is promised by promotion but not fulfilled by the product itself, they make the mistake only once.

The two sides of positioning
There are two flip sides of the positioning coin. The first side—market positioning—is the process of identifying and selecting a market or segment that represents business potential, targeting vulnerable competitors and devising a strategy to compete. Essentially, the process involves determining the criteria for competitive success—knowing what the market wants and needs, identifying company and competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and assessing abilities to meet market requirements better than a company's competitors do.

Perceptual positioning, the second side of the positioning coin, involves forging a distinctive corporate or product identity closely based on market positioning factors and then using the tools of communication and promotion (e.g., advertising, public relations, internet, point of sale, collateral material, etc.) to move the prospect toward a buying decision. This second type of positioning translates market-determined values into the clear, focused language and visual images that install a product into its own niche in the consumer's mind. And if it's done well, of course, it will also install the product into the consumer's home or workplace.

"Fly the friendly skies," for example, did not just pop into print. United Airlines breathed life into this idea—an abstract idea with the muscle to literally move people—after extensive passenger research suggested friendly service as a way to separate the airline from the crowd.

Success of the idea is now legendary, and that success resulted from the airline's well-designed strategy of integrating market and perceptual positioning.

This article first appeared in The Journal of Business Strategy