If you are really into the subject of brands & positioning, read on!

Contents (click on the headings below to skip down to the relevant sections)

- Why is defining (and 'enshrining') the positioning so important?
- The 'Brand Bullseye'
- The target response statement
- Prospecting for Positionings
- Probing the Corners of the 'mental map'
- Acid Tests
- Getting the future edge…
- Customer brand vs Product Brand
- Glossary of terms

'Positioning' is one of the most widely bandied-about (and least well-defined!) buzz-words in Marketing. We quite often hear people say 'positioning' when they actually mean 'advertising strategy' or 'research concept'. Other times we hear people refer to 'brand values' when they really mean 'positioning'.

So what's our definition?

The positioning is a strategic statement of what differentiates your brand competitively in the market - and inside the mind of the target customer. It's what gives him/her reasons to buy you, to be loyal to you, to be an advocate for you. Tangible (product & service) features form the scaffolding that supports your positioning and makes it believable - but a truly strong positioning goes beyond these tangible factors, making powerful and emotive connections.

Finding these emotional connections is what turns a mere product or service into a value-added brand.

Positionings can have many different 'starting places' depending on the psychology of the market concerned - for example: -user imagery & badging: "The precise, stylish brand of office technology which says you're really creative in the way you run your business" -usage occasion: "The wholesome toaster-snack which warms, satisfies and comforts when you've just come home after a really hard day" -mood transformation: "The drinks brand which brings out what's most cool, adventurous and attractive inside the secret you"

In mature markets it's rare to find that the centre-ground is still vacant territory! 'Chances are that the brand leader came along and arrogated to itself all the most compelling category benefits a long time ago… …In situations like this a would-be challenger needs to find and own some piece of turf which has been overlooked by other players - or perhaps think about re-defining the landscape of the market by deliberately creating a new sector all of its own. To illustrate what we mean - one of our great ideas in this regard was for a client trying to get around Jack Daniels stranglehold of the UK bourbon market. Our solution was a new brand concept called 'NYC Red Bourbon' positioned as the modern, trendy, American whiskey from the 'gritty-city' world of New York, yellow taxi-cabs and ER . (Still all about personal reward and unwinding - but a million miles away from Tenessee & steamboats!)

Why is defining (and 'enshrining') the positioning so important?

Running a brand is like conducting an orchestra. The messages transmitted by everything from the advertising to phone calls with your customer care department all need to be kept in harmony and on-brief. Without a clear, single-minded definition of what the brand is about the messages rapidly become discordant and confusing. The positioning statement is therefore a focusing device which helps brand management to keep everything sharp and relevant.

This is why KSBR goes to great lengths to present the positioning vision at the end of the project in ways which everyone inside the company and its agencies can rapidly assimilate. Here are some of the techniques we use …

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The 'Brand Bullseye'

- A simple visual summary of the positioning, starting from the core brand proposition and showing how this is supported by tangible product/service features and then 'wrapped' in the appropriate imagery.

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The target response statement

- The brand as you would want it to be described in future by a true 'convert'. Written in a natural style, jargon-free.

"I like the new Toyota MR2 because it's the only really 'blokey' little sports car around at the moment. These days sports cars all seem to be driven by women trying to make a point of how independent and sassy they are! (Or else people aged 40+ n trying to recapture their lost youth) This new Toyota is different; it looks blunt and macho - like a car built for racing on the track, not posing around town. And it's mid-engined so you can fling it round corners ike it's on rails.. I think they even have a special MR2 racing league down at Brands Hatch which MR2 owners can get into if they want to learn how to drive to the limit. The fact that it's a Toyota means you can't be accused of being pretentious. All in all it's just good, straightforward fun for the boys."

- Core proposition and the pillars which will support in practice

All of these are good, clear ways to express a brand positioning so that it can be picked up and used by everyone from the product development people to designers and other external agencies.

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Prospecting for Positionings

In marketing the consumer is king - but the idea that consumers alone should dictate brand positioning has always been an over-simplification! Customer feedback via research is vital - but to this has to be added analysis of the company and its inherent capabilities, plus an sharp understanding of the competitors already in the market - their strengths and weak spots.

	Beloved of business strategy textbooks, the '3-C's' model is - in effect - what KSBR uses when tasked with helping to find competitive, 'future-proof' positioning solutions or re-invigorating the current positioning. In practice we will often begin a project not by immediately going out and 'doing some research' (often a pointless knee-jerk!) but by reading the old research, studying the market, trying out the competitors, talking to people inside the cllient company - and most of all creatively generating new ideas & positioning options to take into the research process…
Probing the Corners of the 'mental map'
To get the directions out of positioning research you have to go in with concepts which provoke a response! KSBR designs and runs creative workshops to stimulate the project team to come up with several different positioning slants for the same brand; alternative stances which - once visualised into concept materials - provide 'fuel' to drive the research process.

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Acid Tests

OK - the research has gone well and it looks like you've found a brand positioning that 'works' in principle. The key thing now is to ask the hard long-term questions:

Relevant?	Does this positioning offer significant, 'top-of-the-pyramid' benefits to a BIG enough target audience? Is it new / compelling enough to help drive rapid market penetration and recruitment? Can you get sufficient SCALE from it?
Believable?	Are there one or two tangible things you can point to in your communication which will be 'eloquent' for the brand and help cement belief?
Ahead of trend?	Have you spotted a big, long term trend in consumer attitudes / needs? If you launch with this positioning will you be well-placed to gain as the trend develops into a mass-wave? Are you thinking 'bravely' enough about the future as opposed to the present?
Defensible?	How can you ringfence your brand against imitators if the positioning proves to be a winner? Will being 'first mover' be sufficient - or should you be looking to build-in some other defensive strokes?
Deliverable?	Can your company really come through and deliver the promise in reality? How long will it take to make any innovations or improvements needed?

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Getting the future edge…

Marketing - as one textbook famously defined it - is all about 'identifying & satisfying consumer needs at a profit'. If that's so then positioning (at it's best) is about seeing and keying-into big emerging needs which will become hugely profitable in the near future! The most exciting projects we have worked on have been ones where our clients were interested in spotting key trends and predicting the future rather than just describing the present. Conversely, many organisations only start to explore the need for repositioning too late - after the rot has started and the world has shifted against them! (Just think M&S or Sainsbury's .)

In our section on Research we talk about the need to explore at the leading edge when testing positioning ideas - ensuring that it's the savvy 'goats' and not the sheep-like mass who are leading you forward.

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Customer brand vs Product Brand:
Getting the positioning into the corporate bloodstream!

The famous '5 p's' of marketing folklore (product, place, price, promotion & packaging) were fine tools for implementing packaged goods brand positionings - and the basic formula still has its role in fmcg assignments. But today we are entering the era of customer brands where 'company' and 'brand' are one and the same. In this scenario the company culture & values become a crucial factor in the solution: finding and harnessing what's there already or setting out to create values and practices which support and manifest the positioning.

Famous new-generation customer brands such as First Direct, Direct Line, Virgin and Orange have all shown what can be accomplished when the internal culture synchronises with the public face of the brand. In contrast, large corporate bureaucracies - mature firms which have been around for decades and are no longer led by 'benevolent autocrats' - find it much harder to digest and to internalise positioning input. The brand 'Yin' and the cultural 'Yang' simply don't want to want to harmonise!

"Mondicom really cares about you, our customer. We may be a vast international company, but we still have time to treat each & every one of our customers as an individual who matters"

"This is a typical American outfit - really slick and efficient, but ruthless with it. Woe-betide anyone who steps out of line in this place!"

'Internalisation' is therefore of increasing importance to us and our clients once the competitive positioning territory has been defined: finding ways to make the organisation 'live the brand' convincingly so that the new focus is clear to customers in the marketplace. At the time of writing we are shaping a package of techniques to help the process, including:

• culture workshops
  
• corporate story-telling
  
• internal art

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Glossary of terms

To finish where we started - below is KSBR's set of definitions:

Brand Positioning Statement	Full strategic summary of the brand's intended competitive stance in the market - can be expressed in words alone - but often better as a word-diagram such as the 'Bullseye' (see above)
Brand Essence	Ultra short-hand condensation of the the positioning. The central brand idea - boiled down to 2 or 3 memorable key words or a single memorable phrase: aimed at permeating the culture as a 'mantra' used to focus outside agencies as well as internally
Brand Personality	The brand's outward-facing style; how it would look & sound if it came to life. (Key reference-point for the tone of brand communications - eg advertising, corporate design style, copy-style in DM)
Brand Values	What the brand believes-in, what it wants to be judged on. The guiding ethos for behaviour' - eg the way you deal with customers, the way you innovate) (Hence - where 'brand' and 'company' are synonymous - these become the guiding values for the whole organisation in its d internal / stakeholder behaviour as well!)

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'positioning' (Applications first page)
'communication strategy'
'new proposition development'
'innovation & npd'
'customer experience'
'internal insight'
'corporate identity'