Positioning is a strategy for occupying and defending a desired position in the buyer’s mind. We want to quickly establish the category we act in and what makes us different from other companies who also play in that category in order to make more potential customers select us and pay a premium price for our services.
In an earlier blog post we discussed why positioning is important. If you already have found a position, it might be valuable to test if it’s right.
A good position must fulfill a number of criteria:
- The position has to be relevant. Ot must make a difference to the buyer when he/she considers a purchase. For example, Ericsson being “the oldest telecom company” is a proposition that most of today’s buyers probably don’t really care about.
- It has to be available. If someone has taken the position you want in a strong and consisten way, it’s nearly impossible to break in – or at least extremely costly. One example is Chinese car brands who invest heavily in Sweden but still have problems climbing to >1% of the market.
- The position has to be attainable. You must be able to live up to your claims and prove that you deserve the position. If your product is positioned as the quality brand, it’s a disaster if quality is not in top for any reason
- It has to be sustainable. Your claim and proof must be viable over time and not based on some temporary product advantage. And you can’t hop around, like e.g. Scandinavian Airlines unfortunately does. One year it’s the businessman’s airline, the next it is trying to fight the Ryanairs of the world to win leisure travellers. For me, the only good with the new owners and alliance is that business is once again in focus
- Finally, it has to be acceptable, meaning it must be consistent with the buyer’s existing frame of reference. Depending on what level you have decided to position your brand on, there are limitations to what position you can choose. A simple example – – it’s very hard for a company like Burger King (positioned as “grilled burgers”) to start selling sallads…
But most of all positioning is the art of sacrifice. No company can be all things to all people. Apple for example could not be “the computer that makes you as individual more creative” and at the same time appeal to the IT departments of big corporations where traditional PCs in most cases is the only computer you can select. Apple decided to focus and is very successful.
An classic example of failure is General Motors in the 1980’s. The company had a range of brands positioned from premium (Cadillac) to cheap (Chevrolet). Then some manager pushed that Cadillac had to sell more cars which forced Cadillac to launch cheaper models. The opposite with Chevrolet. And suddenly some Chevrolet models were more expensive than a Cadillac. Consumers got confused, which never is good, and probably went to Ford instead. In one decade GM lost 11%-units market share…
So think carefully how you position yourself. It’s probably one of the most important decisions a company must make.
And if you want to discuss positioning and communication, you are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxconsulting.se
