PositionistView

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...

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."...

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...

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...

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...