“The most important decision is how to position your product.” –

What’s Your Position?

Positioning, as it relates to advertising (and overall brand management), is the “foundation” for your brand and is intended to help communicate what there is to know about your product. Your positioning helps define your product and, more importantly, is reflected in how consumers view your brand within the context of all available options. In essence, “positioning” defines why your brand exists and how it fits within the marketplace.

Positioning is supported primarily by your product’s unique features and resulting benefits. Positioning also reflects how the brand is perceived not only by your customers, but by your competitors and even those within your own company, who have invested their time and dedicated themselves in a concerted effort to make the brand a success.

Positioning is the very first step in the “branding” process and should be developed AND finalized before any other branding elements (e.g., symbol, tagline, colors, type fonts, etc.), and even the brand name itself, are even considered.

For marketers, a brand’s positioning is typically memorialized in a formal statement that recognizes the customer, the competition and “why” your brand should be chosen instead of others. The positioning statement may change over time as the brand, competition and market evolve, but it should represent the benchmark against which all of your product’s promotional efforts are measured.

Whenever I develop a positioning strategy for a product or brand, I always start with the perspective of the customer.

• Target Audience – Who am I selling the product to?
• Frame of Reference – What products/brand(s) do my target audience currently use?
• Point of Differentiation – What features/benefits make my product more desirable?

The first two are pretty easy to define since identifying your customer and the competition are basic components of creating any effective marketing strategy. And, for very unique, innovative brands that are sure to “disrupt” the market, the brand’s point of differentiation may be fairly easy to define, or is even self-evident.

However, in crowded, well-served product categories with a satisfied target audience, setting your brand apart, in a way that gets the customers’ attention, can be a real challenge. Simply put, positioning your brand in a way that truly sets it apart may not be so easy.

For this reason, I focus on the Point of Differentiation with a great deal of thought placed on its overall value to the brand and the customer, both short- and long-term. Remember, being “different” does not necessarily make you “better.” When I believe I have the right product positioning in mind, I apply the following “acid test” to evaluate its overall strength and staying power:

• How is my point of differentiation of any real consequence to the customer, and can it be quantified in any way?
• How is my brand truly superior (e.g., easier-to-use, safer, less-expensive, increased functionality, etc.? Is it a market “disruptor?”
• Is my point of differentiation “ownable” for me alone, or can the unique features of my brand be easily copied or duplicated by my competitors and, if so, how quickly?

If the answers to these questions indicate that your customers will not be delighted by your brand with an “Ah-Ha!” moment, or that your competition can easily match your product offering, a different positioning strategy must be considered. Further product refinement or enhancements may even need to be considered, in order to develop a more powerful positioning strategy.

A Consumer Products Story:

Years ago, there was a “disruptive” health & beauty care company named Minnetonka. They introduced brands such as Softsoap (hand soap in a convenient dispenser) and a new toothpaste called Check-Up. At the time the toothpaste category was (and still is) dominated by such powerhouse brands as Crest (Procter & Gamble) and Colgate (Colgate-Palmolive). To compete against such entrenched brands with both enjoying high consumer demand and loyalty, Minnetonka’s strategy was to introduce the Check-Up brand in a first-of-its-kind “pump dispenser” rather than the traditional “tube”. No more squeezing tubes, no more screw caps, no more spilling, no more hassle, and no more mess. It was quickly adopted by many customers and became a tremendous success!

The only problem? The Check-Up point of differentiation, while very unique and quite ingenious, was simply too easy for the other big brands to copy. Pretty soon, every major competitor offered their own toothpaste brand in a pump dispenser. “Pumps” became the hottest new thing, creating a “buzz” within a product category that in years past had featured little innovation.

But, sadly, the long-term success forecasted for the Check-Up brand was not to be. Due to effective marketing efforts mounted by the aforementioned toothpaste companies behind their own pump offerings, not only did Check-Up sales decline, but demand for toothpaste pump itself did, too. After a few short years the novelty of “toothpaste in a pump” simply wore off. While truly a neat concept, people soon realized that, for the same money, they could get more paste in a tube than from a pump since the pump, itself, was costly to manufacture and, therefore, more expensive. Today, not a single major toothpaste brand is sold in a pump.

From a positioning perspective, this story truly underscores how the initial success of a true market disruptor can be short-lived, due to an aggressive and effective competitive response, along with the ultimate decision-making power of the consumer.

When developing your positioning strategy, remember that it can be built around a customer benefit that is objective or subjective, or even both. Perhaps the innovative design of the product satisfies a tangible, real, unmet need among members of the target audience. Or, maybe the benefit is more subtle and, unlike a unique physical attribute, simply satisfies a more emotional need of the customer. Whatever the case, always make sure to test your brand’s relative strength and market potential using the above criteria. In the end, the ultimate strength of your positioning will be determined by the response of both your competition AND your customer.

Finally, routinely check to be sure your promotional strategy and creative execution (i.e., advertising) both reflect and support the positioning strategy you have developed for the brand. It is the best way to ensure the creation of a consistent and cohesive brand message, one that will ultimately result in a compelling advertising and communications platform.

So, remember, positioning is “important” and, while challenging and time-consuming to develop, it is also extremely critical to the success of your brand!

So, let’s start with the most obvious answer. Your product will need a brand name. And, while there are a variety of critical elements that make up your brand’s “identity” we are focusing only on brand naming and, more specifically, what to brand beyond the “name brand.”

There are many factors to consider when developing your product’s brand name, including its positioning, the brand’s personality, market strategy, target audience, and competitive brand strategies, just to name a few. In addition, there are important, meaningful “product features” that contribute to the overall “value” of your brand…critical ingredients that represent key competitive barriers that serve to blunt competitive marketing efforts and lead to your brand’s ultimate market success. So, here’s the question. Since these features are such key contributors to my product’s perceived worth, should they be branded and trademarked, as well? The simple answer is YES.

Serious consideration should always be given to “branding” these very important product features as an important and valuable extension of the brand name. At the same time, you must be sure that an “extended” branding strategy complements and supports the larger product brand, and does absolutely nothing to compete with, negatively impact, or diminish its value.

When deciding if a specific product “feature(s)” should be branded, here are a few things to consider and keep in mind.

• Is the feature of real, measurable consequence to the product’s value?
• Would the anticipated success of the product be considerably less without this particular feature?
• Is the feature currently or soon to be patented?
• Is another company’s “branded” product or technology part of your product to support and differentiate your brand and, therefore, already included your brand’s identity (e.g., Intel^® inside)?
• Does the feature represent a major component of the product’s “positioning” and one that represents a real “point of differentiation?”
• Does the competition have the same feature or similar benefit, but is simply not branded? If so, branding your feature may be of little value.
• Does the feature’s brand name feel/sound like a natural extension of the larger brand name? For example, perhaps the new name is tied to a new technology
• Does it overshadow the larger product brand name?
• Longer term, will other, more innovative features be added to the product in the future, ones that will provide more branding opportunities? If so, what should happen to the current, supporting brand names? Perhaps the answer is to simply focus on the newer features, with less emphasis on the older ones already imbedded in the customer’s overall brand perception.
• To further complicate the strategy, will the branded feature include its own unique logo type, symbol or other graphic design element?
• Once the feature brand name is chosen, can it be trademarked?

It can be very easy to overwhelm your product with too much branding. A feature-rich product is a marketer’s dream, but only when such features are properly leveraged through an effective branding strategy. Excessive branding and trademarking of the features tied to a single product can make it difficult to create a clear, cohesive and effective communications strategy. Ultimately, the result can be a muddled message and one that only leads to confusion among members of your target audience.

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers when you decide whether or not to brand specific product features. But, using the criteria above should help guide you along the way. Ultimately, it is the customer who will decide if your overall branding strategy truly enhances their perception of your brands and the value they represent.