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positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.
To be successful today, you must touch base with reality. And the only reality that counts is what’s already in the prospect’s mind.
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.
Advertising is not a sledgehammer. It’s more like a light fog, a very light fog that envelops your prospects.
In the communication jungle out there, the only hope to score big is to be selective, to concentrate on narrow targets, to practice segmentation. In a word, “positioning.” The mind, as a defense against the volume of today’s communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.
Once a mind is made up, it’s almost impossible to change it. Certainly not with a weak force like advertising. “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s mad...
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The average person will sit still when being told something which he or she knows nothing about. (Which is why “news” is an effective advertising approach.) But the average person cannot tolerate being told he or she i...
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The best approach to take in our overcommunicated society is the oversimplified message.
It’s a selection project. You have to select the material that has the best chance of getting through.
When you want to communicate the advantages of a political candidate or a product or even yourself, you must turn things inside out. You look for the solution to your problem not inside the product, not even inside your own mind. You look for the solution to your problem inside the prospect’s mind. In other words, since so little of your message is going to get through anyway, you ignore the sending side and concentrate on the receiving end. You concentrate on the perceptions of the prospect. Not the reality of the product.
“In politics,” said John Lindsay, “the perception is the reality.”
By turning the process around, by focusing on the prospect rather than the product, you simplify the selection process. You also learn principles and concepts that can greatly increase your communication effectiveness.
Positioning is an organized system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances.
The first person, the first mountain, the first company to occupy the position in the mind is going to be awfully hard to dislodge. Kodak in photography, Kleenex in tissue, Xerox in plainpaper copiers, Hertz in rent-a-cars, Coca in cola, General in electric. The first thing you need to “fix your message indelibly in the mind” is not a message at all. It’s a mind. An innocent mind. A mind that has not been burnished by someone else’s brand. What’s true in business is true in nature too. “Imprinting” is the term animal biologists use to describe the first encounter between a newborn animal and
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to move a new idea or product into the mind, you must first move an old one out. “The world is round,” said Christopher Columbus. “No, it’s not,” said the public, “it’s flat.” To convince the public otherwise, fifteenth century scientists first had to prove that the world wasn’t flat. One of their more convincing arguments was the fact that sailors at sea were first able to observe the tops of the masts of an approaching ship, then the sails, then the hull. If the world were flat, they would see the whole ship at once. All the mathematical arguments in the world weren’t as effective as a
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Once an old idea is overturned, selling the new idea is often ludicrously simple. As a matter of fact, people will often actively search for a new idea to fill the void. Never be afraid to conflict either. The crux of a repositioning program is undercutting an existing concept, product, or person. Conflict, even personal conflict, can build a reputation overnight.
For a repositioning strategy to work, you must say something about your competitor’s product that causes the prospect to change his or her mind, not about your product, but about the competitor’s product.
The late Howard Gossage used to say that the objective of your advertising should not be to communicate with your consumers and prospects at all, but to terrorize your competition’s copywriters, and there’s some truth in that.
In some small corner of the brain is a penalty box marked “loser.” Once your product is sent there, the game is over.
“We’re better than our competitors” isn’t repositioning. It’s comparative advertising and not very effective. There’s a psychological flaw in the advertiser’s reasoning which the prospect is quick to detect. “If your brand is so good, how come it’s not the leader?”
category after category, the prospect already knows the benefits of using the product. To climb on his or her product ladder, you must relate your brand to the brands already in the prospect’s mind.
