Tom Asacker

• Home
• Tom's books
• About Tom
• Thought pieces
• THE Network
• Contact

Watch highlights from Tom's speeches

 

« New Article - Ball of Brand Confusion | Main | Weekend reading »

Mark is right and right on!

"As I have often said, 'positioning' has never been about a 'line,' it has been about a 'position.' And a position is about standing for something. And if you stand for something that means you should be doing the right things to support that something.  Because that means you're real.  And a brand is as real as you and I are." - Mark Ramsey, Hear 2.0.

Mark gets it.  And then, alas, there is this, from a recent BusinessWeek online article:

"Positioning is the process of distinguishing yourself from competitors in specific ways in order to be the preferred provider for certain market segments. It's the act of designing your company's offer and image so it occupies a distinct and valued place in the targeted customer's mind. The main benefit of clear positioning is that it controls how the market perceives you and helps make your products and/or services more attractive." (emphasis mine).

Horse hockey!  Every time I read Al Ries, Jack Trout, or any of the other "positioning as persuasive image and communication" zealots, I roll my eyes and shake my head.  Here's how Ries and Trout defined positioning in their seminal book of the same name:

"The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what's already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist."

Have they changed that definition?  Not that I'm aware of.  If they have, someone please post an updated definition in the comments (and please cite your source), and I'll stand corrected. 

Look, branding as bull horning and brain washing used to work twenty-seven years ago when product and service options were a fraction of what they are today and people were still influenced by propositions like, "We try harder" and "Helps Build Strong Bodies Twelve Ways." People today are better informed, well connected and extremely skeptical of any type of marketing claim.  Which makes ours an era of action, not talk.  Experience, not words.

We’re living in a marketplace driven by creativity and innovation.  The concept of branding is a much more dynamic idea, where a brand's power lies in its ability to connect emotionally through a range of associations beyond taglines; associations that relate directly to the identity of the customer and the improvement the brand makes in his or her very busy life. We expect companies to prove the value of their brands with new, exciting and relevant products, services, experiences and business models. 

So Mark is right: If you stand for something that is different and valuable; something that will truly make a difference in people's lives, then prove it!  Stop trying to persuade people with clever advertising and image-building campaigns, and instead invest in making that difference. And please don't worry about people finding out about you.  Your ecstatic customers will help you with that.

Posted June 18, 2008
Email this post

The comments to this entry are closed.