Talk:Positioning (marketing)/Archives/2017

Suggested Content that Could be Added to the Positioning article
ANY EDITOR IS WELCOME TO USE ANY OR ALL OF THIS CONTENT (PREFERABLY BY ADDING TO THE ARTICLE ON POSITIONING (MARKETING))

I began to overhaul the article on Positioning (marketing), but for a variety of reasons was forced to stop. As you will note from the Talk page, the article includes a lot of material that is incorrect, inconsistent or has other problems. The page really needs a lot of attention. Unfortunately I am unable to proceed with the planned changes. However, I had developed some content in my Sandbox and wanted to put it up on the Talk Page in the hope that some editor/contributor will see fit to add it to the current page. Anyone at all is welcome to use this content, edit it, add to it, subtract from it and try to get it included on the page. Any of the material that follows would represent a major improvement on some of the content that currently resides on the page.

I realise that with the current 'deletionist/ challenge everything' mindset, a culture of fear has been inculcated among Wikipedians, leaving many editors too afraid to do anything more than minor edits or format changes. In reality, however, the article will only improve if some of the current shabby content is replaced with superior material.

'Lead Section

''[The following paragraph was introduced as the concluding paragraph in the lead section, but was challenged by a well-meaning editor mainly on the basis of lack of citations. My understanding is the lead should summarise the key issues in the article and that citations are not required in the lead when the content refers to relevant topics in the main part of the article which is appropriately referenced. Perhaps another contributor might have more success adding this material when the well-meaning editor is in a less challenging frame of mind? There is an image, that I devised and got through the vigorous image process that supports this paragraph. In any case, it's not a big deal - it was just a neat segue-way to the more detailed content on segmentation and targeting elsewhere in the article. Use your discretion.]''

Suggested Content: Positioning is the final step in the S-T-P planning approach ; Segmentation→ Targeting → Positioning; a core framework for developing marketing plans and setting objectives. In the STP approach, a market is segmented, one or more segments are selected to become targets of the marketing activity, and a marketing program is developed with the needs and wants of the core targets in mind. Products or services are positioned in a way that resonates with the selected target market or markets.

Suggested Caption for image: Positioning is the final step in the S-T-P approach which highlights three areas of marketing planning

Definitions/ Explanations

''[The article contains one or two definitions, but they are more concerned with explaining how the concept evolved over time than with explaining the concept in simple terms. It had been my intention to clarify this, and I still think it needs to be done. In addition, the definitions section really needs to be moved so that it precedes 'Origins'. Sorry, but this is unfinished and I have lost all desire to do more work on this topic.]

Suggested Content: "Positioning is the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target market. The goal is to locate the brand in the minds of consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm. A good brand positioning helps guide marketing strategy by clarifying the brand’s essence, what goals it helps the consumer achieve, and how it does so in a unique way. Everyone in the organization should understand the brand positioning and use it as context for making decisions." David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

Origins of Positioning Concept (or simply Origins)

''[When I first read the article on Positioning (marketing), the prose credited Ries and Trout with first developing the positioning concept. Although this view is not uncommon, it is incorrect. Several commentators on the Talk page had addressed this issue some years ago, and had expressly asked for the role of David Ogilvy to be included. My investigations into Ogilvy's role suggested that he was indeed using a rudimentary concept of positioning as early as the 1950s, well before Ries and Trout came along. I wrote the following passage and added it to the page, but it was challenged by a well-meaning editor and eventually I decided to withdrew the content rather than spend hours and hours responding to the large number of challenges and mini-lectures. This content has since been replaced with some alternative material which I am not convinced explains the origins any better. Since writing the original passage, I have investigated the role of Ogilvy in greater detail and found additional sources, which are included below. If someone wants to try and integrate this material, and try to get it up, my feeling is that it would be helpful to users.]''
 * Done

Suggested Content: Al Ries and Jack Trout are often credited with developing the concept of product or brand positioning. However, in their early writing, Ries and Trout show that the positioning concept was widely used in the advertising industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertising guru, David Ogilvy, believed that “the most important decision is how to position your product” and drilled his creative team with this idea. Both Ries and Trout would have been exposed to the positioning concept in their work as advertising executives. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the concept of positioning began to spread out of the advertising community and into the marketing community following the publication of a series of articles published by Ries and Trout in Industrial Marketing in 1969 and Advertising Age in 1972.

[The following material was pre-existing and had been in the article for years. I am not sure when it was added, but it was removed after a well-meaning editor incorrectly attributed the content to me, possibly because I had moved it and cleaned up the references so it looked like it was a new contribution in the diffs. I am still not entirely sure what was so wrong with it. You be the judge! If you are game, it could follow on from the preceding paragraph to form a concluding comment].

These articles were to become highly influential. By the early 1970s, positioning became a popular word with marketers, especially those that were working in the area of advertising and promotion and in 1981 Ries and Trout published their classic book, Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind (McGraw-Hill 1981).

[In case this material does get challenged, here are a few ideas that can be brought to bear:


 * (a) A number of scholars have credited Ogilvy with developing the positioning concept. (See, for example Urde, M. and Koch, C., "Market and brand-oriented schools of positioning", Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 23, no. 7, 2014, pp 478-490; )


 * (b) Jack Trout tends to give himself a leading role in the development of the concept (See, http://www.troutandpartners.com/jack-trout-opinion.asp)
 * According to Trout, "First we had Rosser Reeves talking about “unique selling proposition.” Then we had David Ogilvy talking about the “image of a brand.” Then Bill Bernbach talking about delivering advertising that had a lighter touch. I chimed in with how to use advertising to “Position” or how to differentiate your brand in the minds of your customers and prospects. Then things began to go off the cliff." This is likely to be self-promotion - note that the claim is published on his own website and is not supported in other independent reviews of the concept's history.


 * (c) David Ogilvy's book, Confessions of an Advertising Man (cited in full above) was a retrospective and reflective book about his long career in advertising Man. Unfortunately he does not say exactly when he first came up with the idea, but his book was first published in 1963 - a full 6 years before Jack Trout published the first of his articles on the subject.


 * (d) Other evidence suggests that Ogilvy was using the positioning approach in the 1950s as he suggests in his book. Ogilvy is widely believed to have used the positioning concept with a Dove campaign in 1955 and 1957. (See Market Research Blog, http://blog.lab42.com/client-spotlight-ogilvy; Branding Case studies, https://www.process.st/branding-case-study). The dates of these campaigns preceded Ries and Trout's articles by around a decade.


 * (e) Ogilvy is thought to have drilled his creative team in the importance and application of positioning. In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, he wrote, :: "Everyone in the organization should understand the brand positioning and use it as context for making decisions." (See David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (1983) Vintage Books, 1985 - and, which incidentally, in the article, is incorrectly cited as a journal/magazine article with the date, 11 September, 2013, (see current reference list). However, this should be cited as a book first published in 1983 and reprinted a number of times by various publishers). It should be noted that Ogilvy's books are retrospectives - that is, he wrote about his recollections of his time as a major advertiser.


 * (f) Ogilvy is on record as having referred to the positioning concept and used it in several campaigns in the mid 1950s and early 1960s. He explained in the following terms (See David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (1983) Vintage Books, 1985, p. 12)


 * [In relation to a Dove campaign of 1957] “I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet bar for women with dry skin. This is still working 25 years later.” [Although this book was written well after Ries and Trout, it shows application of the positioning approach in the late 1950s]


 * [In relation to a SAAB campaign of 1961] “In Norway, the SAAB car had no measurable profile. We positioned it as a car for winter. Three years later it was voted the best car for Norwegian winters.” [As above, although book written after Ries and Trout, this shows application of the concept in the very early 1960s - well before Ries and Trout]

Developing the Positioning Statement

''[On the Talk page, at least one commentator had expressly requested an example or examples of Positioning. The following was intended to be a practical example of how the standard positioning format is applied in practice. This content should be included in the section, 'Developing the Positioning Statement' and follow directly on the commentary that begins, "positioning statements should be written in the format.." I made one valiant attempt to include this example, but some well-meaning editor moved it to a new section, copy edited it until the required format was totally unrecognisable, and then proceeded to tag every 3-4 words with [clarification needed]. If this practical example cannot remain in the section on how to develop and write positioning statements, then arguably it should be removed altogether. I will not try to insert this again - perhaps a different editor may have more luck with it. Once again, it's not a big deal because the images of perceptual maps in the following section (perceptual maps) provide other useful examples which, no doubt, some users will find helpful in understanding the positioning concept as well as how perceptual maps are used to represent consumers' mental representations of products within a category.]''

Suggested Content:
 * Done

Volvo Positioning Example

An annotated example of how this positioning statement template or format is translated for advertising purposes in the prestige car market appears below:

To upper income, other brand switcher car buyers [target audience] Volvo is a differentiated brand of prestige automobiles [marketing strategy] That offers the benefits of safety [problem removal] as well as prestige [social approval] The advertising for Volvo, should emphasize safety and performance [message strategy] [Must mention prestige as an entry ticket to the category] And will downplay its previous family-car orientation in the interest of appealing to a broader range of users.

Reference: Volvo Creative Brief, in John Rossiter and Larry Percy, Advertising Communications and Promotion Management, N.Y., McGraw-Hill, 1997, p. 159

Suggested Image: Suggested Caption: Volvo positions itself within the prestige vehicle category as a car offering superior safety and performance

Approaches to positioning
 * Done

''[A serious omission in this article is the absence of any discussion of approaches to positioning. I had not got very far with this. But for what it is worth, here are a few ideas that could be developed by an energetic editor. ]''

Suggested Source: Belch, G., Belch, M.A, Kerr, G. and Powell, I., Advertising and Promotion Management: An Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, Australia, 2009, pp 205-206

Suggested Content:

Suggested Image: Suggested Caption for image: Haigh's Chocolates stopped making chocolate Easter bunnies, replacing them with Easter bilbies as culturally appropriate symbol of Easter in Australia

There are a number of different approaches to positioning

(a) Positioning against a competitor: e.g Hungry Jack's tastes better

(b) Positioning within a category: e.g. Within the prestige car category, Volvo is the safe alternative

(c) Positioning according to product benefit: e.g. Toothpaste with whitening

(d) Positioning according to product attribute: e.g. Dove is one quarter moisturiser

(e) Positioning for Usage Occasion: Cadbury Roses Chocolates - for gift giving or saying 'Thank-you'

(f) Positioning along price lines e.g. a luxury brand or premium brand

(g) Positioning for a User: Johnson and Johnson range of baby products (No Tears Shampoo)

(h) Positioning by cultural symbols e.g. Australia's Easter Bilby (as a culturally appropriate alternative to the Easter Bunny)

I am adding a few images that could be used to support this section.



Perceptual maps

''[Any student of marketing will quickly realise that the absence of perceptual maps or perceptual mapping techniques is a major omission on this page. This topic does not need a great deal of content, because Wikipedia already has an entire article devoted to it. I have made a bit of a start, and realise that it is not great and would benefit from further development. To my way of thinking, this doesn't need to be a huge section - just a couple of sentences to introduce the idea with a link to the relevant WP article would be enough. I regret that I did not develop this bit more fully. But maybe this is enough to stir some energetic editor into action. ]''

Suggested Content: See Perceptual mapping Perceptual maps are a diagrammatic representation of consumers' mental representations of the relative place various brands within a category. Traditionally perceptual maps selects two variables that are relevant to consumers (often, but not necessarily, price and quality) and then asks a sample of the market to explain where they would place various brands in terms of the two variables. Results are averaged across all respondents, and results are plotted on a graph to indicate how the average member of the population views the brand that make up a category and how each of the brands relates to other brands within the same category. While perceptual maps with two dimensions are common, multi-dimensional maps are also used.

Suggested Files
 * Done

[Wiki Commons has a number of images that could be used to support a section on perceptual maps.]

File: Perceptual Map 1 - Suggested caption: Simple perceptual map of U.S. motor vehicle category (using two variables)

File: Multi-dimensional perceptual map Suggested caption: Multi-dimensional perceptual map of analgesics category

File: Perceptual Map 2 Suggested Caption: Perceptual map for hypothetical product category

[There are other Wiki Commons images in this subject area, but I do not recommend that anyone use them as they have problems, including spelling problems.]

Algorithms used in positioning analysis

''[I would recommend that this be added at the very end of the article and that it is given its own section (2nd or 3rd level heading). It is all correctly referenced and has links to other relevant Wikipedia pages and is ready to be simply pasted into the article if anyone is game to do that.]''

The following statistical procedures have been found to be useful in carrying out positioning analysis:
 * Done


 * Cluster analysis and Correspondence Analysis


 * Conjoint Analysis
 * Multidimensional scaling especially non-metric scaling (NMS)


 * Multivariate analysis


 * Neural Networks

AS MENTIONED, FEEL FREE TO USE ANY OF THIS MATERIAL. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE IT, THAT'S FINE - BUT PLEASE SPARE ME THE LECTURES AND CHALLENGES. THESE ARE ONLY SUGGESTIONS, WHICH YOU ARE AT LIBERTY TO IGNORE. BUT, I REALLY DON'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT. THANKS. BronHiggs (talk) 09:57, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Old sources lost in rewrites
These were from the "Sources" section that was changed to a "Further reading" section after many rewrites. I moved them here in case they could be used again, or if someone wants to search past editing history to see if they can figure out if any are still technically sources verifying something. --Ronz (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Business Dictionary, Definition of Positioning, Online: http://www.businessdictionary.com
 * Trout, J., "Positioning" is a Game People Play in Today's me-too Market Place," Industrial Marketing, Vol.54, No.6, (June) 1969, pp 51–55.
 * Ries, A. and Trout, J., Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind, New York, Warner Books - McGraw-Hill Inc., 1981, ISBN 0-446-34794-9
 * Trout, J. and Rivkin, S., The New Positioning : The Latest on the World's #1 Business Strategy, McGraw Hill, New York, 1996, ISBN 0-07-065291-0
 * Moore, G., Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High Tech Products, New York, Harper Collins, 1991.
 * Levi, K., Differentiate or Diminish: The Art and Necessity of Business Positioning, 2nd ed., Greenstock, 2011


 * I'm really not too sure what the previous comment is about. All of the preceding titles are currently cited with the sole exception of Trout and Rivkin (1996) BronHiggs (talk) 10:40, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Good enough. Thanks for checking. --Ronz (talk) 16:19, 27 March 2017 (UTC)