Effective Advertising Is No Accident!!Branding/Positioning in
Communication Strategies
Rick Steinbrenner
Advertising Is Not Only Fragmented, But Also Expensive
Consumers used to watch only three TV networks, read magazines, listened to local radio stations.
Now there are 900 channels in broadcast TV plus 90 million on YouTube, spending almost ½ trillion dollars globally – lots of clutter.
Consumers “had” to watch commercials; now DVR technology has made “zapping” easy.
Consumer viewing/reading is now fragmented due to varying work schedules and other life activities.
The Internet is/has replacing/replaced traditional print mediums like newspapers and magazines.
The average cost to produce a TV commercial today ranges anywhere from $300M to over $1MM+
The minimum media weight threshold starts today at $5MM+/year to have any appreciable marketplace impact.
- Nielsen, Ad Age, Media Associates
8 Barriers To Great Advertising
1. Agencies & manufacturers “think” they know what constitutes effective advertising copy – they “guess”.
2. Sales performance will tell if the advertising is working or not – too many other variables.
3. Agencies really don’t want to copy test their creative “babies”.
4. Agency creative folks can have big EGO’s and not open to constructive criticism.
5. Look at competitive advertising – “assumption is they know what they are doing”.
6. Lack of strategy driven by poor positioning or extending brands into categories they shouldn’t go.
7. Manufacturer ineptness due to either processes, policies, impatience, arrogance, risk aversion, etc.
8. Poorly designed advertising copy testing and/or over reliance on one or two metric measures.
- Jerry M. Thomas
It All Starts With A Great Brand
But what is a brand?Branding is not….. Branding is…..
Great advertising Is about their consumer/customer needs
Consumer awareness About solving their problems
Promotions or pricing Product relevancy
Marketplace distribution Product differentiation vs. competition and/or other adjacent alternatives?
Slogans or taglines Creating marketplace character
Features or good/better/best Long lasting and memorable
• It’s all about differentiation
• The brand has to be relevant in the consumer’s mind
• If done correctly, you’re building up brand equity – as important as any item on the balance sheet
Your Brand Starts With The Right Positioning
Your brand must have a sustainable competitive advantage:
a) Need to identify your “SCA” so a focused positioning can be developed.
b) Translate the competitive advantage into a positioning statement and your ultimately your brand character/DNA
What is a sustainable competitive advantage/positioning?
In short, it’s something that: You exclusively have Your competition doesn’t (or don’t realize they have it) Your customers/employers want it
What Exactly Is Positioning?It’s psychological bond you want to create with your consumer/customer/employer.
“Positioning is not as much what you do to the product as what you do to the mind”.- Trout & Ries, “Fathers of Positioning”
“A particular subjective consumer/customer meaning that a company tries to build into the product idea”.- Phil Kotler, “Father of Marketing”
“People don’t buy products, they buy solutions to problems”.- Ted Levitt, Competitive Strategy - HBS
Competitors
Identify “Need Gaps”
Address Barriers Features/Benefits
Marketplace
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Why Is Positioning Important?
Product positioning is as real as any physical feature or attribute!!
It’s the cornerstone of the marketing/brand strategy and precedes all other strategies
It should not be changed often. Change only if the environment/product changes
Positioning Statement Template
To target market, X is the brand offrame of reference that benefit/point of
difference.
Support/Reasons Why: #1 #2 #3 etc.
What is A Target Market?
Those consumer/customers having highest predeposition to buy your product.
Can be defined a number of ways: Demographically (age, income, education, sex, segments) Psychographically (meaning personalities, values, lifestyles) Behaviorally (meaning how they behave) Attitudinally (meaning how they think)
Examples include: Men, 18-24 years old People who are fanatics about taking care of their cars People who go to sporting events Conservative vs. liberal
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What Is A Frame Of Reference?
The frame of reference is either a category or a consumer/customer based solution to THEIR problems.
These include either direct category users or acceptable alternatives.
A frame of reference usually has barriers to entry by competitors
- Cathode ray tube TV sets don’t have clear, sharp images- Accountant usually needs CPA certification
It has to reflect how the consumer/customer sees the world vs. how the manufacturer, retailer or employee does.
Direct Product Categories Adjacent Categories/Substitutes
Carbonated Soft Drinks All Other Soft Drinks
Table Saw Circular Saw/Hand Saws
Irons Dry Cleaners
Accountants, CPA’s Financial Software
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What Is A Benefit/Point of Difference?
It is the single-minded, ownable product claim or promise to the marketplace.
Examples: Cuts hair drying time Gets the job done faster Coke is the real thing You offer something very few others have
Point of differences need to address the frame of reference.
Need to make it meaningful to the consumer/customer/employer so you can own it.
It can also be a non-rational/emotional point of difference. Not all claims have to be product or attribute based.
- GE: “Brings good things to life”- Gillette: “The best shave a man can get”- Candidates: Creative problem solver
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What Are Support/Reason’s Why? The product based reason to believe the claim (e.g. the substantiation).
Ideally, this would be unique to the product and ownable.
- Cuts hair drying time by 50%- Cuts installation time by 50% vs. other conventional methods
- No other product tastes like Coke (i.e. the “real” thing)
- Developed and launched 20 new products
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Actual Positioning Statement
To women and men with busy lives, the Black & Decker line of small household products
offers a better way of doing things because it provides smart, innovative solutions for your
home.
Corporate Branding ProcessAnalytical Framework
Define Core
Brand DNA
Identify Brand
Potential
Develop Brand Equity Bridges
Marketplace Analysis
Hunting Grounds
Who are we? What can we be? Where can we live? How do we get there?
Product Branding StrategiesUnderstanding How It Works
The Hierarchy of Branding…..What the consumer/customer buys….defines the business(es) the company is in…..
What the consumers REALLY Buy
The Benefit of What They Sell
What They Sell
The Company
What
Defines the
Business
What the Products Provide
The Products/Services
The Brand/Sub-Brand Name
Successful Examplesof Branding Applications
What the consumers REALLY Buy
The Benefit of What They Sell
What They Sell
The Company
Happiness
Refreshment
Soft Drinks
Happiness Machine
Eliminates
Speed Bumps of
Daily Living
Better Way of Doing Things (Innovation Solutions)
Power Tools & Home Products Solutions
What the consumers REALLY Buy
The Benefit of What They Sell
What They Sell
The Company
Scumbuster Cordless Wet Scrubber – “Splish Splash”
What the consumers REALLY Buy
The Benefit of What They Sell
What They Sell
The Company
Miraclesof Science
Better Way Of Doing Things (Innovation
Solutions)
Residential, Agricultural & Automotive Products
“Trunk Crew” – Featuring 4-Time NASCAR Champion – Jeff Gordon
Summary1. Great advertising just doesn’t happen…it’s a result of carefully researched and thought out brand
positioning.
2. Positioning is all about differentiation and uniqueness vs. your competitors and will build up brand equity.
3. At the core a brand must have a strategic competitive advantage: You exclusively have Your competition doesn’t (or don’t realize they have it) Your customers/employers want it
4. Be sure to take the time to help validate your creative with consumers…it will save you money in the long run.
5. A new brand will be harder to establish awareness since there is no prior marketplace equity.
6. Using an existing brand on a new product is more cost effective, but one must be careful of not over-extending the brand.
7. Remember, the clearer and simpler the positioning, the easier it will be to break through the clutter and become memorable.