P.1
Nowadays, there is a problem in our society of overcommunication. Every year there's more to be said than what is received.
P.2
Positioning is not something that can be done to a product. It is the mind of the prospect what can be altered to position a product.
P.7
An oversimplified message is the most effective approach to take in an overcommunicated society.
P.8
It is a matter of choosing what is really important in that message for the best chance to get it through.
P.19
Quote: "Positioning is an organised system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances".
An easy way to get into people's mind is to be the first.
P.21-22
The hard way is to be second. It is always better to be first than having the best product in a particular field. The key is to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. The size of the pond can always be increased.
P.20
Communication is like love. What counts the most is receptivity. When two individuals fall in love with each other it is because they are both receptive to that idea.
P.30
Experiments involving blind tasting champagne usually ranked inexpensive brands from California above the French ones. With the labels on, this does not happen.
(use example of hidden persuaders with detergent)
One of the main objectives in advertising is to heighten expectations about a product or service and make consumers believe it will perform the expected miracles. Although, a company might create the opposite expectation and get in trouble trying to sell a product. Gablinger's beer introductory advert sold the product as a diet product, which has an implication of a bad taste. It worked to perfection, and consumers were easily convinced that it did taste bad. One tastes what one expects to taste.
Humans' mind automatically reject information that does not have anything to do with experience or prior knowledge to work with. Dr. George A. Miller, psychologist at Harvard, asserts that seven units at a time is the limit for a human mind to deal with. People rarely remember more than seven brands in a given product category. And for products with less interest, consumers name no more than one or two brands.
To deal with so much information consumers have learned to simplify to deal with everything as a necessity to keep from being overwhelmed with so many complexities in life.
P.34
If a company is not the first (which most likely will not be) it has to try to be the second. Ries and Trout call the 'uncola' position the strategy that 7-Up once carried out, linking their product with something that already existed in the mind of the prospect as an alternative to it.
Conventional logic says that the concept can be found in a brand or its product, but this does not work when trying to find an unique position. It is the prospect's mind that dictaminates it. The 'uncola' is not inside a 7-Up can, it's in the drinker's head.
Avis is another example of how to successfully deal with being second. At the beginning, they started by saying 'Avis is going to be No. 1'. That's telling the world about the aspirations, but this is wrong psychologically and strategically speaking. The truth is that they ignored competitor's position.
--- link this to the other Avis' ad campaign: "we work harder because we are 2nd".---
P.40
If a company is the competition of a famous one (for instance, IBM) the first thing the smaller business has to do is to understand they are not them, so they do not have to act like IBM. A better strategy would be to take advantage of the existing position IBM owns in the minds of the prospects and project a new one in computers that is somehow related to IBM.
P.46
If a company is the leader, it is pointless to repeat to the consumers that they are the No.1, for example. A company cannot build a leadership based on their own terms: 'The best-selling under-$1000 high-fidelity system east of the Mississippi'. Companies have to build a leadership position in the terms of the prospect. 'The real thing' Coke advert is an example that can work for any leader. Saying 'we are No.1' is not the same as what Coca-Cola did. The number one will be the number one because of low prices, more availability and so on. But being 'the real thing' has an emotional attachment, and will always own a special place in the mind of the prospect.
P.49
When a leader is established it should cover competitive moves by introducing another brand. Instead of stay still, a company with a should do this to reflect changes in tastes, technology and the like. For example, Ivory is a soap that has been in the market for more than a hundred years. The availability of heavy-duty laundry gents put pressure on the company to release Ivory Detergent. Although, instead of changing the position in the prospect's mind, a new brand was released: Tide. This new detergent had a name to be matched with and it was an enormous success.
P.50
New names can help to bridge a gap between eras and allows companies to make mental transitions. Government agencies know very well how to broad a name. The Department of Housing and Urban Development used to be Housing and Home Finance Agency. With this new name, the agency can enlarge increase its staff, enlarge its scope of operations and justify a larger budget.
P.53
Brands that accentuate their products on the 'better' rather than on the 'speed' fail to achieve sales goals. The better version of a me-too product is a regular mistake. This approach is a waste of time in trying to improve a product that is going to be released with a small advertising budget than the leader's.
P.54-55
To find a gap in the market, a company must be able to think in reverse and go against the grain. For years, cars were becoming better looking and more streamlined, until the Volkswagen Beetle got in the market and changed the game. The conventional way to advertise this car would have been to maximise the strengths and minimise the weaknesses, but they stated their position very clearly: 'think small'. Two simple words stated Volkswagen position and challenged prospect's assumption that bigger is not a synonym of better.
P.56
Companies confuse greed with positioning thinking too often. In order to get rich, charging high prices is not the answer.
A company has to be first to:
1.- Establish the high-price position
2.- Do it with a valid product story
3.- Place it in a category that high-prices are not strange to consumers.
High prices need to on the advert, no in the store. The price should be treated like any other feature.
P.57-58
Another effective way to find a gap in the market is using sex to segment a product category and establish a position. Perfume, for example, is normally sexualised. One would think that the more feminine and delicate the brand, more appealing it will be. But Revlon's Charlie is the first brand to try a masculine name with a great success. The majority of perfumes move in one direction, so the opportunity lies in the opposite.
P. 60
"Don't try to trick the prospect. Advertising is not a debate. It's a seduction". Verbal logic will not be what the prospect will consider. "If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, I say it's a duck".
P.61
Sometimes there are not gaps in the market that can be found. It is then when a company must create one. This can be done by repositioning competitors that own a place in the prospect's mind.
P.63-64
In order to achieve this, a company must say something about their competitor's product that makes the prospector change his or her mind about it. For example, "Most American vodkas seem Russian" was something said in an advert. Captions said: "Samovar: Made in Schenley, Pennsylvania. Smirnoff: Made in Hartford, Connecticut. Wolfschmidt: Made in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Stolichnaya is different. It is Russian" and the bottle was labeled "Made in Leningrad, Russia". The result was that sales began to soar for Stolichnaya. Something to keep in mind is that people like to see the high and mighty exposed.
P.66
Although, saying that a company is better than its competitors is not repositioning. It is comparative advertising, which is not very effective. The psychological flaw the prospect easily detects is: "If your brand is so good, how come it's not the leader?"
These are failed attempts of repositioning the competition. What they are actually doing is using the competitor as a benchmark so they tell the potential consumer how much better they are.
P.65
If a product is in the corner of the brain marked with the word "loser" it is best to start all over again with a new product and a new game.
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