The Three Most Common Positioning Blunders

Calvin L. Hodock

Professor of Marketing, Berkeley College

In a moment of reflection, the late David Ogilvy observed, “Positioning is the most important decision in marketing.” Trout and Reis served up the following observation about positioning: “It is not what you do to the product but what you do to the mind of the prospect for the product.”

As a marketing weapon, positioning is so potent parity or even inferior brands can own the product category. Campbell’s Chunky Soup is an example of this. It was originally  Bounty: a line of canned entrees, which turned out to be a major new product flop. One of the items in the Bounty line was canned stew, which had a negative image (tinny taste, artificial, etc.).This rejected product became a huge success with a bit of positioning magic.

The canned stew was repositioned as Campbell’s Chunky Soup with the tag “Soup so chunky you’ll be tempted to eat it with a fork.” The positioning targeted men and urged them to chow down with Chunky. Over the years, the brand has used NFL football players like Mike Ditka and Donovan McNabb to pitch this hungry man’s meal, and this

advertising strategy often used the NFL player’s mother who teaches her son’s team about the wholesome goodness of Chunky Soup. This positioning endeavor made soup “man-food.”

The brand moved from a miserable failure to about a $500 million business. The basic product never changed from its days as an abysmal flop— it was still Bounty canned stew. What changed was the repositioned thought planted in the minds of American males.

Bounty had found its positioning swing. We have found three common mistakes when brands ain’t got that Bounty swing.

1. Insignificant Positioning: The positioning benefit is irrelevant— a solution to a problem that America does not have— as an example think of dry beer from Anheuser-Busch. Isn’t beer as we know it suppose to be wet and thirst quenching. Dry beer sounds like a flawed beer that is not thirst quenching.

Or how about Gatorade AM? Not even Payton Manning can sell this product. Although he tries in the brand’s commercial. It is another example of an insignificant positioning. In the American culture, coffee is our morning drink reinforced by Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, and lots of other reference points, including the corner diner. This is a culture war that Gatorade AM can’t win.

When marketers make this positioning mistake, there is a lot of fuss

about absolutely nothing, because the brand is under positioned. There is no substance.

2. Confused Positioning: Consumers do not understand what you are trying to sell them. The early light beer brands suffered from this problem until the right positioning came along. Gablingers, one of the first light beers sold in America, failed because beer lovers were told they would lose weight drinking it. Beer drinkers were confused. They didn’t drink beer to lose weight; they drank it for the buzz.

Another earlier light beer was Meister Brau sold in Chicago. While the Peter Hand Brewing Company knew how to make it, they didn’t know how to position it.  Miller came along and bought the recipe and the Lite trademark— a major marketing coup.

So Miller Lite, a Gablingers clone, told beer drinkers that now they could drink more beer without feeling full. Beer drinkers heard what they wanted to hear even though both beers were essentially the same. Light beer became a popular beverage after a rocky baptism. Beer drinkers were no longer confused about it. Innkeeper beer for my men— make it Miller Lite.

Crest Rejuvenating Effects was a toothpaste positioned for women. They became confused. How were their teeth different from men? Teeth are teeth. More confusion: Crest Rejuvenating Effects remineralizes teeth. Women didn’t understand this positioning benefit. What did it mean? It sounded like something straight from a chemistry text. How did one look into the bathroom mirror and determine whether their teeth had been remineralized?

Crest Rejuvenating Effects was basically the same old Crest with a few superficial flourishes. It was fake innovation structured around a confused positioning. Since it lacked that Rice Krispies snap, crackle, and pop, the brand died a merciful death

3. Mismatched Positioning: The product cannot deliver on the promise in the positioning: there is a disconnection. While fat free products like Snackwells enjoyed temporary success, they didn’t taste like the real thing. Health was nice, but taste was even more important. Snackwells dominance in the cookie aisle shrank to a couple facings on the grocery shelf. Consumers resist “good-for-you-foods” that are lacking in taste— that’s why sugar coated cereals are more popular with kids than brussel sprouts.

Balding males naively believed that their departed hair follicles would instantly return by rubbing Rogaine into their scalps twice a day for a few months. The brand initially attracted the most extreme cases of male pattern baldness, men in their 60’s and beyond desperately grasping for their youth. Rogaine could not deliver: there was a gap between positioning expectations and product delivery. Rogaine was a complex product only effective in about 40 percent of the cases for a certain type of male pattern baldness. Compliance was essential; the benefit of hair restoration from prior applications was lost once treatment stopped. None of this was ever explained to hair challenged males. It was back to the comb-over The Rogaine rap became: “This stuff doesn’t work.”

 

Rogaine found out the hard way— disappointing sales- -that it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.