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

By Sarah Threet, Advertising and marketing Advisor

At Heinz Advertising and marketing, we worth steady studying and progress. We wish to be the sort of consultants who’re at all times on high of the most recent developments so we are able to place ourselves as a strategic useful resource for our purchasers. Topically, the subsequent ebook that we now have been studying is a ebook on positioning, “Clearly Superior: Tips on how to Nail Product Positioning so Prospects Get It, Purchase It, Love It” by April Dunford. This ebook, not like most on the positioning subject, teaches you HOW to place your product. 

Positioning your product is very like offering the context wherein your product lives. Context can utterly change the best way clients view your product, or the rest; it’s transformative. One of many examples that Dunford offers is the experiment involving the acclaimed violinist, Joshua Bell. 

The Transformative Technique of Context 

Joshua Bell is an award-winning musician who sells out reveals averaging $300/ticket. On condition that context, one would possibly assume if he have been to play publicly on the streets, he would amass an enormous crowd of followers, starstruck on the alternative to observe him play free of charge. However positioning him in a unique setting utterly modified the best way the viewers perceived him. 

Whereas Joshua performed his violin outdoors of a busy subway station, the most important 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 bit annoying.  

In a efficiency corridor, Joshua would have his personal signal, an accompanying orchestra, a program that supplied details about who he’s and his many accolades, and he could be dressed to the nines like everybody else attending to hearken 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 once we perceive them inside their finest body of reference. The failing for many of us once we attempt to place ourselves or our merchandise/companies is that we expect that the context is clear. 

The Two Traps of Contextual Positioning 

When we now have created a brand new services or products, we regularly fall into the entice of turning 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.  

Lure 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 offers is of a baker with a brand new sort of cake: “the best chocolate cake on this planet”. The baker is already married to a set of choices based mostly off the concept they’re going to create this nice cake: 

• They’ve determined their target market shall be these with the revenue and curiosity in shopping for a flowery cake, so they’ll wish to promote on to a prestigious bakery or via a high-quality eating restaurant.  
• Their aggressive alternate options embrace different truffles, ice lotions, pies, and diverse desserts. 
• If promoting alongside their different desserts, they’ll probably not be capable to upcharge an excessive amount of. 
• Product differentiators might want to attraction to an viewers of fancy cake shoppers, so they could need the cake to be made with natural components, or attraction to a high-brow style, together with fancy French salt within the chocolate.  

Within the strategy of growing this fancy chocolate cake, the baker has ended up with a product a lot smaller in dimension – a single serving, and they also have wrapped it in a flowery packaging. As a substitute of a conventional cake, the product reworked into one thing extra like a muffin, and that contextual shift makes a giant distinction regardless that the components are the identical.  

• Their target market now must shift; muffins are extra steadily seen at espresso outlets somewhat than fancy bakeries or being offered at high-end eating places.  
• The aggressive alternate options shift to merchandise extra like Danishes, donuts, and bagels.  
• The value level would probably shift to cheaper, and subsequently, the baker would wish to promote extra of them. 
• Since muffins are sometimes seen 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 probably involved with the flamboyant additions, like French salt, and as a substitute care extra about further chocolate, perhaps some caramel, and getting extra energy out of the morning meal.  

Continuously, the product we find yourself with isn’t 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 vital to be open-minded about what you’re creating and the place it might find yourself, as a result of clients can typically really feel confused with a services or products that doesn’t match with the best way the corporate is positioning it.  

Lure 2: You rigorously designed a product for a specific market, after which the market modified. 

Markets, and the best way shoppers understand markets, are continually altering; opponents are steadily evolving their choices in response to those market shifts. Generally, regardless of how properly you positioned your product for its meant market, the positioning nonetheless fails as a result of the market across the product has modified; the context has modified and subsequently the positioning is 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 clients are abruptly frequenting that institution – why? It seems the competitors is promoting the very same muffin you might be, nonetheless, they’ve positioned their muffin as a “gluten-free paleo snack”, far more aligned with the stylish 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. 

Tips on how to Place Your Product Like Your Firm Depends upon It 

We’re steadily instructed there may be one default method to place a product and never that there are various methods to reframe the best way we and the buyer would possibly consider the product. It’s not typically taught that positioning is a deliberate selection 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 flowery cake. This time, the baker reimagines the cake as a transportable piece of cake one would possibly be capable to take and devour with their espresso on-the-go. What they find yourself inventing is a bit of cake hooked up 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 components, nevertheless it’s not cake within the conventional sense shoppers understand cake and luxuriate in cake. Sure, the product comprises cake, and that’s the half that’s being actually consumed, nevertheless it has a unique form (it’s spherical somewhat than triangular like a conventional piece of cake) and it’s delivered on a transportable stick. What makes it distinctive isn’t that it’s cake however the different parts of the product. Ultimately, the baker sees their product is extra like a lollipop for adults to devour with their espresso, in order that they reposition their product as a “Cake Pop”.  

Context Issues – So How do I Place My Product? 

I’ll proceed to put in writing about this ebook over the approaching months and supply extra of the small print realized from April Dunford’s ebook. For now, right here are some things to think about about methods to intentionally place your self and your product: 

• What’s your target market’s standpoint of the issue and the way your product/service solves that drawback?
• Is your product/service aiming to unravel a specific ache level you might be conscious already exists? 
• How is your product uniquely totally different out of your opponents 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?