Most marketing experts will tell you that every product and service can and should be differentiated and there’s no exception for “commodities”. To prove the point, they’ll frequently use the example of salt -- maybe a brand like Morton -- which has …
Read MoreAs a professional marketer or business owner there is no way you look out at the market landscape and think ‘today is no different than yesterday.’ And when I say that, I mean the world of brand marketing, now that we’re nearly three-weeks into a virtual economic shutdown due to the spread of Coronavirus, looks almost nothing like it did the day before it started.
Read MoreAccording to Havas’ 2019 Meaningful Brands report the answer for most brands is NO. In fact, based on the report’s findings more than ¾ of all brands could disappear and no one would care. If you’re a marketer this fact should scare the hell out of you!
The Meaningful Brands report shows that most consumers are significantly …
Read MoreThere’s a major issue getting in the way of brand success and it seems to be happening all the time. Big businesses, small businesses … no one’s immune. Yet, almost everyone you ask can tell you the ‘right’ way to do it …
Read MoreWe have all watched in aww the dancer who seemingly floats across the floor, or the diver who after a series of flips and twists enters the water with a nearly imperceptible splash.
No one believes the professional dancer or …
Read MoreI read a post recently that made me think about ‘opportunity cost’ in a different way. The gist of the post was that while we tend to consider opportunity cost …
Read MoreWhat happens in the first 6-months after a product launch is critical; what happens in the first year can be the difference between brand life and death.
After 20 years of working with hundreds of brands around the world to develop positioning strategy …
Read MoreGoPro has become synonymous with action cameras particularly for the extreme sports community. Unfortunately for GoPro, the market they're in seems to be too small to sustain a public company and leadership has been unable …
Read MoreWhen it comes to positioning or re-positioning a Brand, traditional marketing practices often tell us to find the right place for our product within the traditional confines of the current market. Well, what if we told you that you have a choice …
Read More… that you must set limits on what you’re trying to accomplish.” --Michael Porter
Few products are introduced that revolutionize markets. Most often, products are introduced with only marginal differences from competitors. Many marketers focus on trying to win over the same customers who are already using a competitive brand by convincing them their product is “better.” In many cases, these marketers spend a great deal of time and money making the case for why consumers need to change…
Read MoreIf you're like most business owners, the answer is "kind of," here's an example:
A couple days ago, my friend Tracy called. She owns a small business – about 20 employees – they make tech gadgets designed for moms.
To make a long story short, her company designed a device to be smaller and have better battery life than a couple …
Read MoreMost new products find themselves competing in markets that are becoming more crowded and competitive, increasing the importance of brand positioning strategy. In many instances, an easily recognizable competitive advantage does not exist for these new products. In fact, at first glance, many customers may see these products as offering very little advantage (if any at all) …
Read MoreIn our last PositioningTip®, we identified the increased importance of differentiating brands when competing in crowded and competitive markets. We reviewed how, in these situations, brand teams have a tendency to move toward a broader, less narrowly-defined positioning strategy in an attempt to widen their field of opportunity. This less-descriptive positioning often leads to a less interesting—and frequently under performing—brand. While our last tip outlined one potential solution: strengthening the positioning by …
Read MoreA few weeks ago, at a positioning seminar we were running for a group of brand and market research managers, a young brand manager asked an interesting question: “How do we take positioning from the theoretical to something more tangible?” The discussion that followed intrigued me because, for the first time …
Read MoreOK, so you’ve kicked off a positioning effort and have thoroughly dissected the needs of your potential customers, isolated a unique insight that none of your competitors recognize, and are poised to develop the most differentiating and tantalizing positioning your market has ever seen--outstanding!
Wait, you’re not sure the insight is …
Read MoreOn the road of positioning-strategy development, there are many hazards that can derail a team’s effort to identify a relevant, differentiating, and aspirational brand position. One of the most common positioning strategy mistakes we see marketers make is …
Read MoreAt the end of last week, I was doing an interview for a marketing podcast. Near the end of the session, the interviewer asked an interesting question:
“When a potential client calls you, what is the main problem they call about?”
My mind quickly sorted through the hundreds of conversations I’ve had over the years and I came up with a list of three general areas …
Read MoreThis tip has been on my mind for a couple weeks now. I started thinking about it after I received the second of three similar calls over a two-week period. For some reason things happen in threes and apparently so does ineffective advertising, who knew?
In each case the problem the brand or market research manager called to discuss …
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