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Repositioning - The Twin to Every Position
The best brand positions are said to "reposition" the competition.
For every season of life and renewal, there is a shadow season of dormancy and death. For everything we are, there is what we are not. For every brand position there is a twin- the reposition. The best positioning ideas naturally reposition another idea or brand...
Making Sense Of Social Media Planning
Innis Maggiore is often asked how we go about social media planning. Clients want to know what can be done in the social community space to create competitive advantage.
With failure after failure of big corporations trying to "do social media," one reminder is clear: don't try to be what you aren't.
Wal-Mart is low price, not a social community. Coke is the original beverage, not a social community. Like so many other companies and products, they've both failed and continue to fail miserably in their social media planning...
Tropicana: A Lesson In Brand Creative
There has been a lot of talk, by marketing experts and consumers alike, about the debacle of Tropicana's new packaging and brand creative.
In case you didn't know (because of how swiftly it disappeared from stores), the orange juice giant changed their product packaging from the perennial concentration (pardon the pun) on the image of the straw sticking out of an orange to a graphic they felt was a bit "juicier."...
Barack Obama's New Media Fundraising
The story of Obama's success is very much a story about new media fundraising.
Grading Top Ads on Creative Positioning
Creative positioning is essentially the art of expressing a differentiating idea while, at the same time, standing out in a cluttered media landscape. Before we begin grading others, it's time for a pop quiz.
Name your ten most memorable recent advertisements.
Top five? Can you remember any? And, if you can, can you recall what product or service they were trying to promote?
One more question. did any of the ads prompt you to respond?...
Starbucks: Get Back To Being Unique
An article in the the Columbus Dispatch touted that Starbucks was taking cues from its cheaper rivals. That they were seeking part of the 'value' pie.
What a ghastly mistake. The first rule of positioning, in fact a commandment, is that a product, service, a company, even an individual can only stand for one thing in the mind of the prospect. Positioning is about brand differentiation. In Starbuck's case, its uniqueness is its position...
Don't Ask Me For A Marketing Tagline
I'd like to turn your attention to the topic of branding, dispelling some common notions about what branding is, and what it is not.
For starters, it is not a marketing tagline...
What is Positioning in Marketing? Why it's the CEO's Number One Role.
For so many years, CEOs have focused on doing things better. For a long time, this approach worked. However, a problem has surfaced over recent years as we realize that this approach is simply not working anymore.
Being better has become a basic requirement: it is what it takes just to stay in the game. Your prospects and customers have come to expect a higher level of quality and service, and, as a result, quality and service are no longer differentiators.
Before you make your next marketing move. You should be asking, "what is positioning?"...
Differentiating Your Brand
Differentiating your brand may prove quite a challenge. When we work with our clients on determining their differentiating idea we put them through our proprietary Appreciative Discovery®.
As part of the Appreciative Discovery, the following differentiating filter was developed. It is a three-part filter, a proof, for validating the positioning or differentiating idea. Only ideas that score 100 percent pass. We call it the 3-Cs test...
Progressive's Brand Identity: In or Out?
Remember the 1997 movie called In and Out? It starred Kevin Kline as Howard Brackett, a Midwestern high school teacher who questioned his sexual identity after being pronounced gay on national TV by an Academy Award-winning former student.
If this weren't a movie title, it might be a commentary on Progressive Insurance. Like the character in the film confused of his sexual identity, they seem confused of their brand identity. The company simply can't seem to identify if it is in or out of the buy direct space. As a result, it may be more out than in as a top brand, having recently dropped to number four behind Geico.
