Positioning is about comparing your product, your brand, your service to what already exists. Positioning isn’t about actual results. It’s about perception.
To define your positioning, draw a two dimensional graph using axes that are relevant to your product or service. Plot your position relative to your competitors on the graph. If you can’t do this, then you don’t understand your positioning.
1) Know your positioning relative to your competitors.
Owning a quadrant:
Kellogg’s bought La Jolla based Kashi in 2000. When they did so, they didn’t change the branding, the packaging or the logo because they needed Kashi to stay positioned in the “healthy” and “appears to come from a small company” quadrant, at the time competing against others in that quadrant, like Bear Naked. Then in November of 2007, Kashi (now a subsidiary of Kellogg’s) bought Bear Naked as well, so they own both of the brands that dominate that quadrant.
2) Constantly monitor your positioning. If your competitors successfully move, know how and when to strengthen your position and when to hold your ground.
Extending your positioning advantage:
FedEx is squarely positioned as being the most reliable choice for shipping. As a result, they have been able to charge a premium price. The US Postal Service isn’t much less reliable than FedEx but as we said above, positioning is not about actual performance, it is about perception.
When UPS tried to compete with FedEx on reliability and beat them on price, FedEx responded with technology. By allowing you to check on your package at any point during the delivery, FedEx pushed themselves further out on the reliability access, not because FedEx is much more reliable than UPS, but because we perceive them to be.
Defining new axes:
Wal-Mart realized that if it had enough stores and moved enough volume that it could coerce suppliers and offer consumers the lowest possible price. They are also friendly (think of the Wal-Mart greeters). So Wal-Mart’s positioning is “Cheap and Friendly”.
Wal-Mart’s main competition is Target, who was smart enough to realize that they would never be able to beat Wal-Mart on price. So Target changed the axis and defined new positioning. Instead of “Cheap and Friendly”, Target became, “Cheap and Design”. They now appeal to a different customer who has a different worldview.
K-Mart can’t win the battle of “Cheap and Friendly” or “Cheap And Design”. They’re “Just Cheap”, which is Latin for “Chapter 11″.
3) Powerful positioning can overcome adversity.
Weathering the storm:
Perrier, the French mineral water company lost millions of dollars after the discovery of minute traces of benzene, a hydrocarbon thought to cause cancer, in their bottled water. This hit public confidence in a drink favored by the health-conscious and billed as absolutely pure. Unable to track the affected batch, Perrier recalled 140 million bottles at a cost of $40 million.
But today, Perrier is as popular as ever. Their positioning on the axis of ‘pure’ was enough to weather the storm.
Perpetuating a story:
Today, Volvo cars now are no safer than many other cars. They are less safe than many. But because of that strong positioning that Volvo has established in the brains of many consumers, people still believe that Volvos are the safest cars on the road. That is a primary factor in the acquisition of Volvo by Ford. They weren’t buying the cars, they were buying the word ‘safe’.
4) Find an existing hole and fill it.
Look at Bob Dylan. When he walked into Greenwich Village, he was a Jewish kid from Minnesota with a funny voice. But NOBODY KNEW THAT. He invented a new position for himself and he became a musical legend.
Some people see Jackson Pollock’s art and say, “I could do that”.
But to people who understand positioning, the answer is, “You didn’t. He did”.
