Business Solutions

In the not too distant past, advertising was prepared in isolation, or in other words you studied the product and its features, and then you prepared advertising, which communicated to your customers the benefits of those features, and in comparing that to the ‘Positioning Era’ the rules are actually reversed, so to establish a position, you must often not only name competitive names, but also ignore most of the old advertising rules as well, since in category after category, the prospect already knows the benefits of using the product and to climb on someone’s product ladder, you must relate your brand to the brands already in the prospect’s mind.

Let’s take a look at a classic positioning strategy that can be used to worm your way onto a ladder owned by someone else as 7-Up did, by linking the product to what was already in the mind of the prospect, the “uncola” position brilliantly established 7-Up as an alternative to a cola drink, and so you won’t think that was just a one-time fluke, and to prove the universality of positioning concepts, let’s check out McCormick Communications that took easy listening radio station WLKW, an also-ran in the Providence, Rhode Island market, and made it number one, and their theme was WLKW, the “unrock” station, so to find a unique position, you won’t find an “uncola” idea inside a 7-Up can, you find it, and this is key, ‘inside the cola drinkers head.’

Understand that consumers rank brands in their minds and if a brand is not number one, then to be successful you somehow must relate it to the number one brand, and a campaign that pretends that the market leader does not exist is likely to fail, a great example of this is Avis, that tried unsuccessfully for years to win customers, pretending that the number Hertz did not exist, finally, it began using the line, “Avis is only No.2 in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder.” In examining the success achieved, we find that for 13 years in a row Avis lost money, and after the campaign, Avis quickly became profitable, so whether Avis actually tried harder is not relevant to their success, but rather, consumers finally were able to relate Avis to Hertz, which was number one in their minds, so once again it is critical to understand that consumers continually rank brands in their minds.

Shortly after being sold to ITT, Avis decided it was no longer satisfied with being Number 2, so it ran ads saying, “Avis is going to be Number 1.” Avis was not destined to be number one unless it could find a weakness in Hertz to exploit and everyone knew it, and furthermore, the old campaign not only related Number 2 Avis to Number 1 Hertz on the product ladder in the prospects mind but also capitalized on the natural sympathy people have for the underdog, and shortly after releasing their new campaign, Avis’ market share began to fall, after losing the value gained from consumer’s sympathy for Avis’ position as the underdog, and forgetting or ignoring the fact that it is the consumer that ranks brands in their mind.

In today’s marketplace, the competitor’s position is just as important as your own, and sometimes more important, because if a company isn’t first, then it has to be the first to occupy the number 2 position, and although it’s not an easy task, it can be done. MCI is against AT&T, Burger King is against McDonalds, Pepsi is against Coke, and Firestone is against Goodyear, and so on.

If you are shooting for second place, your strategy is most often determined by the market leader and in strength there is weakness, for where ever the leader is strong, there is opportunity for a would-be No. 2 to turn the tables, as you discover the essence of the leader and then present the consumer prospects with the opposite, in other words, don’t try to be better or different, as it’s often the upstart versus old reliable.

Scope, the good tasting mouthwash, hung the “medicine breath” label on its Listerine competition, but understand that you simply can’t knock the competition, as the ‘law of the opposite’ is a two edge sword, and it requires honing in on a weakness that your prospect will quickly acknowledge: One whiff of Listerine and you know that your mouth would smell like a hospital, and then you quickly twist the sword: Scope is the good tasting mouthwash that kills germs.

Burger King’s most successful years came when it was on the attack and it opened with “Have it your way,” which twitted McDonalds mass manufacturing approach to hamburgers, then it hit McDonalds with “Broiling, not frying” and “The Whopper beats the Big Mac.” All these programs reinforced the No. 2 alternative position. Then, believe it or not, for some unknown reason, Burger King ignored the law of the opposite, “The best food for fast times,” We do it the way you do it,” “You got to break the rules,” and so on. It even started a program to attract little kids, the mainstay of McDonalds’ strength, and this is no way to stay a strong No. 2, as Burger King’s sales per unit declined and have never returned, since Burger King made the mistake of not taking the opposite tack.

There are more successful followers than there are successful leaders (the first with the most), so the chances are great you will find your greatest success positioning your business as a follower, but you must develop a complete understanding of positioning and the mind of the consumer, and the fact that it’s the mind of the consumer that will always decide where you will rank, and ultimately the levels of success you achieve.