PositionistView

The story of Obama's success is very much a story about new media fundraising. In an era when the imperative for campaign dollars lurk behind so many recent scandals, Obama has raised more money than anybody else without plumbing ethical gray areas or even spending much of his own time soliciting donations...

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...

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...

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...

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.

The brand is the most important asset that a company has. Half of Coke's total value is attributable to its brand, over $70 billion. Disney's brand contributes 68 percent to its overall value. McDonald's brand contributes an astounding 71 percent! A brand is not just the logo or name for a product or service. Brands that are built to express the differentiating idea, inherent to a specific business model and its resulting product, will create value beyond what the product was originally designed to deliver...

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?"...