The Context of Positioning: An “Clearly Superior” E book Abstract – Half 1

By Sarah Threet, Advertising and marketing Marketing consultant

At Heinz Advertising and marketing, we worth steady studying and development. We need to be the sort of consultants who’re at all times on high of the most recent developments so we will place ourselves as a strategic useful resource for our shoppers. Topically, the following e book that we’ve been studying is a e book on positioning, “Clearly Superior: How you can Nail Product Positioning so Prospects Get It, Purchase It, Love It” by April Dunford. This e book, in contrast to most on the positioning subject, teaches you HOW to place your product. 

Positioning your product is very similar to offering the context wherein your product lives. Context can fully change the way in which prospects view your product, or anything; it’s transformative. One of many examples that Dunford supplies is the experiment involving the acclaimed violinist, Joshua Bell. 

The Transformative Means of Context 

Joshua Bell is an award-winning musician who sells out exhibits averaging $300/ticket. Provided that context, one may assume if he had been to play publicly on the streets, he would amass an enormous crowd of followers, starstruck on the alternative to observe him play without cost. However positioning him in a distinct setting fully modified the way in which the viewers perceived him. 

Whereas Joshua performed his violin outdoors of a busy subway station, the biggest crowd amassed at any given time was solely about 7 individuals. Over 1,000 handed within the 45 minutes he performed, and solely 27 donated, for whole earnings of lower than $40 – not even a sixth the quantity a venue would cost for a ticket to see him on knowledgeable stage. The contextual distinction was the stage on which he was performing. Most folk who handed by merely perceived him as a person simply making an attempt to make a greenback, and others even discovered his music a little bit annoying.  

In a efficiency corridor, Joshua would have his personal signal, an accompanying orchestra, a program that offered details about who he’s and his many accolades, and he could be dressed to the nines like everybody else attending to take heed to his music. The viewers is supplied with the context that tells them why they need to care about listening to this efficiency and why they need to spend good cash. Most individuals depend on a body of reference; they want to have the ability to evaluate one product or expertise to a different to higher perceive its worth.  

Most merchandise are distinctive solely after we perceive them inside their finest body of reference. The failing for many of us after we attempt to place ourselves or our merchandise/companies is that we expect that the context is apparent. 

The Two Traps of Contextual Positioning 

When we’ve created a brand new services or products, we frequently fall into the entice of changing into pigeonholed to at least one positioning context: the one which’s most evident. The fact is there are various methods to place the identical product/service.  

Entice 1: You’re so caught on the concept of what you constructed you don’t see when your product transforms into one thing else. 

The instance Dunford supplies is of a baker with a brand new sort of cake: “the best chocolate cake on the earth”. The baker is already married to a set of choices based mostly off the concept they will create this nice cake: 

• They’ve determined their audience will probably be these with the earnings and curiosity in shopping for a elaborate cake, so they’ll need to promote on to a prestigious bakery or by means of a effective eating restaurant.  
• Their aggressive alternate options embrace different truffles, ice lotions, pies, and diverse desserts. 
• If promoting alongside their different desserts, they’ll possible not have the ability to upcharge an excessive amount of. 
• Product differentiators might want to enchantment to an viewers of fancy cake shoppers, so they might need the cake to be made with natural substances, or enchantment to a high-brow style, together with fancy French salt within the chocolate.  

Within the means of creating this fancy chocolate cake, the baker has ended up with a product a lot smaller in measurement – a single serving, and they also have wrapped it in a elaborate packaging. As a substitute of a conventional cake, the product remodeled into one thing extra like a muffin, and that contextual shift makes an enormous distinction though the substances are the identical.  

• Their audience now must shift; muffins are extra regularly seen at espresso retailers fairly than fancy bakeries or being bought at high-end eating places.  
• The aggressive alternate options shift to merchandise extra like Danishes, donuts, and bagels.  
• The value level would possible shift to cheaper, and due to this fact, the baker would need to promote extra of them. 
• Since muffins are sometimes considered as morning confectionaries, including a great deal of chocolate to a muffin indulges a distinct segment set of morning sweet-tooths. These people are much less possible involved with the flamboyant additions, like French salt, and as an alternative care extra about additional chocolate, possibly some caramel, and getting extra energy out of the morning meal.  

Continuously, the product we find yourself with shouldn’t be the product we got down to construct, and it may be troublesome for us to see the gradual transformation and the way the context must shift with the transformation of the product. It’s essential to be open-minded about what you’re creating and the place it might find yourself, as a result of prospects can typically really feel confused with a services or products that doesn’t match with the way in which the corporate is positioning it.  

Entice 2: You rigorously designed a product for a selected market, after which the market modified. 

Markets, and the way in which shoppers understand markets, are consistently altering; rivals are regularly evolving their choices in response to those market shifts. Typically, regardless of how nicely you positioned your product for its supposed market, the positioning nonetheless fails as a result of the market across the product has modified; the context has modified and due to this fact the positioning is now not related.  

In Dunford’s instance, the muffin baker has shifted their product to focus on health-conscious shoppers by filling it with nuts, seeds, and dates, and advertising and marketing it as a “weight-reduction plan muffin”. A brand new competitor opens throughout the road and lots of of your prospects are immediately frequenting that institution – why? It seems the competitors is promoting the very same muffin you might be, nevertheless, they’ve positioned their muffin as a “gluten-free paleo snack”, far more aligned with the fashionable notion of being health-conscious however not falling for weight-reduction plan tradition. The context shifted over time as consuming habits and stylish diets have modified, and the unique muffin baker didn’t reposition their muffin for this market evolution. 

How you can Place Your Product Like Your Firm Is determined by It 

We’re regularly informed there may be one default method to place a product and never that there are various methods to reframe the way in which we and the buyer may consider the product. It’s not typically taught that positioning is a deliberate alternative that requires instances, consideration, and systematic course of.  

In Dunford’s instance of deliberate positioning, we as soon as once more revisit the baker who was making an attempt to make a elaborate cake. This time, the baker reimagines the cake as a transportable piece of cake one may have the ability to take and devour with their espresso on-the-go. What they find yourself inventing is a chunk of cake connected to a stick, and initially, that’s how they conceive of positioning their new product: “cake on a stick”. However Dunford asks, “Is it actually only a cake on a stick, and is that the way you need your shoppers to understand it?’ 

What the baker has newly crafted could also be cake as outlined by the substances, nevertheless it’s not cake within the conventional sense shoppers understand cake and luxuriate in cake. Sure, the product accommodates cake, and that’s the half that’s being actually consumed, nevertheless it has a distinct form (it’s spherical fairly than triangular like a conventional piece of cake) and it’s delivered on a transportable stick. What makes it distinctive shouldn’t be that it’s cake however the different components of the product. In the long run, the baker sees their product is extra like a lollipop for adults to devour with their espresso, so that they reposition their product as a “Cake Pop”.  

Context Issues – So How do I Place My Product? 

I’ll proceed to jot down about this e book over the approaching months and supply extra of the main points discovered from April Dunford’s e book. For now, right here are some things to contemplate about tips on how to intentionally place your self and your product: 

• What’s your audience’s standpoint of the issue and the way your product/service solves that drawback?
• Is your product/service aiming to resolve a selected ache level you might be conscious already exists? 
• How is your product uniquely totally different out of your rivals and why ought to shoppers care? 
• What are the traits of a shopper who would actually worth your distinctive providing? 
• What’s the finest market context that may showcase and make apparent your distinctive worth to those that would profit most from it?