Microsoft word - positioning_v3(ls).doc
Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
CO NTENTS
2007 MarketingProfs LLC • All rights reserved.
Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
In tro d uc tio n
Describing a creative process in a step-by-step how-to guide is not a simple
matter, since there is not a clear-cut answer that is best for all small
businesses. Like a good chef, you'll need to modify the following recipe and
season it to taste.
This template covers positioning, naming and taglines, which are typically
among the first marketing decisions a new business makes. They also can be
the most important topics in a total marketing review for existing businesses.
The three subjects—positioning, naming and taglines—are almost
inseparable, so you'll want to consider them simultaneously.
2007 MarketingProfs LLC • All rights reserved.
Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positio n in g
We'll begin with a clear definition of positioning: It is the way consumers
think about your brand. It resides in their brains, where they store data,
emotions and perceptions related to your brand. It's not something you
own; the consumer owns it. But if you understand your customer's
emotions and perceptions about your brand, you can use that knowledge
to your advantage and may be able to influence future perceptions and
purchasing decisions.
From a marketing strategy standpoint, we describe our desired or intended
positioning in a document called a positioning statement.
The two essential parts of the positioning statement are:
The positioning promise—the benefit you promise consumers
The reason why someone should believe that you/your company can
deliver on that promise
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
An effective positioning statement has several characteristics. It is:
Focused, single-minded and memorable
Benefit-oriented
True, accurate and precise … not exaggerated or a wish list
Believable … does not challenge credibility
Unique and competitive
Substantive, relevant and important to the target audience
Able to capture and reflect the most important source of
competitive advantage
Developing a good positioning statement is not easy. However, since the
positioning is at the core of a marketing strategy, the effort spent to craft
a good positioning statement is usually rewarded with a successful
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
Four steps to help develop a positioning statement:
1. Start by understanding who your prime target audience is. Be as
specific and narrow as possible so that you have a clear picture of your
target audience. You don't want a long list of everyone who might
possibly be interested. You're looking for the sweet spot—the people
most likely to need or want your product or service.
You can narrow your audience:
Geographically
Psychographically or by lifestyle characteristics
By current product usage
By industry or market segment
Demographically—by age, gender, income, education,
children at home, etc.
Sometimes this is done graphically using a target.
The bull's-eye area is our prime target audience, and
you then expand it ring by ring, including more people
as you move further away from the bull's-eye.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template—A Step-by-Step Approach
Positioning … continued
It is important to understand the nature of your audience so you can
address their needs as specifically as possible and express your
product message using the words that will make most sense to the
intended audience.
If you already have a business, you need to find out who your current
customers are and use that definition as the starting point. Your
current customers have already demonstrated that they value your
product or service, so your goal is to figure out what it is about them
that caused them to make their purchases while others didn't.
If you haven't already done carefully planned market research, this is
a good place to start. You need to understand your target audience in
as much detail as possible.
2. Next, you need to identify the most important benefit your target
audience realizes when they buy and use your product or service.
Again, if you already have a business, it's a matter of identifying what
your customers think is your most important strength. You may be
able to find this out using the same market research tool you use to
identify the unique/distinctive characteristics of the customer base. It's
a good idea to have an objective measure, rather than trusting your
own ideas and perceptions.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
When developing positioning for a new brand, it is important to have
an objective source of input. Otherwise, you're "drinking your own
wine," so to speak, and you run the risk of getting a shock when you
introduce your product to the market.
It is customary to begin with a guess as to who the target audience is
likely to be and convene focus groups of people from that general
population. During the focus group discussions, ask participants about
their current habits and practices, and listen carefully for the benefits
they think they get and those they think are lacking in the current
brands. You're listening for important unmet needs that you might be
able to satisfy and that would be unique elements in your positioning.
If the project is really important, you should follow up the focus groups
with a quantitative survey to test different positioning concepts with
your target audience to see if your understanding from the focus
groups can be applied to the broader target audience.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
If you don't end up with a winner, go back to the first step and work
your way through the process again. If this seems like a tedious
process, consider that it is much less costly (and ultimately less
time-consuming) than introducing a product that is positioned in a way
that doesn't appeal to the target audience.
The entire process is a way to match the product benefits, as perceived
by your target audience, to an important need that they recognize
they have. It is not an exercise that's based primarily on product
features. It's based on understanding consumer needs and perceptions.
When the two match, it is called a "product-market fit," and you can
then proceed to develop the elements of the marketing mix with a
positioning that expresses the essence of that product-market fit.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
3. Consider the level of benefit you can safely promise. There are three
levels to explore:
Level 1: Benefit positioning
Level 2: End-benefit positioning
Level 3: End-end-benefit positioning
Level 1: Benefit positioning identifies the basic positioning: "Nobody
beats Federal Express when it comes to reliable overnight delivery." Or
"Hallmark cards deliver the most meaningful messages to recipients."
Level 2: End-benefit positioning takes that benefit to an emotional
payoff: "You won't have to worry about your package arriving on
time if you use Federal Express" or "Your Hallmark greeting card
will be appreciated by the recipient as being on target, meaningful
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
Level 3: End-end-benefit positioning expresses that in a way that
reflects directly on the customer: "People will think you are
conscientious and committed to delivering what you promise if you
use Federal Express" or "The recipient of your greeting card will
recognize that you selected the card specifically for them and that
you took the trouble to pick a card that they would appreciate."
Of course, these are not the actual taglines or slogans used by
Hallmark or Federal Express, but they come close to them.
Consider their well-known taglines:
FedEx: "When it absolutely, positively has to be
there overnight."
Hallmark: "When you care enough to send the very best."
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
Many companies either don't use benefit-oriented positioning or they
stop at the benefit level and never consider what end-benefit or end-
end-benefit positioning can do for them. Levels 2 and 3 are not always
appropriate, but when they are, they can be very powerful and make a
significant difference in the effectiveness of marketing plans that are
based on the positioning statement.
Positioning—especially positioning at levels 2
and 3—is not limited to consumer products, even
though its importance is most obvious in packaged
goods. FedEx targets a business-to-business (B2B)
audience. So do many other B2B companies—all
of which understand this multi-level positioning
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
4. When you have a draft of a positioning statement that you think is
close, it is a good idea to test it against the checklist for effective
positioning statements. You can use a five-point semantic scale to
express how well it meets certain criteria, ranging from 1 being "not
at all" to 5 being "perfectly." If you have a marketing or management
team that wants to be involved, you can have each person fill out the
assessment form independently and then compare notes. If there are
major disagreements, it's probably a good idea to explore them and
see what the reasons are for the disparities.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
Criterion
does it meet
Comments
criterion?
Focused, single-minded and
Benefit-oriented
True, accurate and precise
Believable/credible
Unique and competitive
Substantive, relevant and
important to the target
Reflects most important
source of competitive
Different people have different standards they find acceptable. My
personal rule of thumb is that I would want a minimum of 30 points
total and no individual criterion rated below a 4; and I wouldn't stop
development until I reached that point. Some companies are satisfied
with an overall rating of 25; others say nothing below a rating of 4
(which forces a minimum of 28). Still others weight the various criteria
and compute their own metrics and standards.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Positioning … continued
Since the positioning statement is critically important, you don't want
to force-fit the solution. You want to get it right. It often takes several
months to develop a positioning statement, especially when market
research is involved.
Can you speed up the process? Of course. However, doing so generally
increases the risk of a suboptimal positioning, and you need to decide if that
is something you can live with long term. It's not easy to modify positioning
once it's established. It's much easier—and considerably less costly—to get it
right the first time.
Many marketers bring in positioning specialists for particularly important
projects. They recognize that there is as much art as science to positioning
and that developing a good positioning statement is not something that
can usually be done by first-timers, no matter how good they might be
The reality is that most marketers deal with positioning issues once or twice
in their careers, if at all. Positioning specialists have dealt with dozens, if not
hundreds, and they agree that the process gets easier the more often they
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
There are five common approaches to naming—whether it's for a brand
1. Take the names of people, animals, places or symbols:
Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Scientific Atlanta, Ford, Heinz,
Alamo, Eli Lilly, Disneyland
2. Literally describe the business, product or service:
American Airlines, General Motors, Metropolitan Life, General Electric,
Universal Studios
3. Use contractions, acronyms and initials:
IBM, FedEx, Nabisco, ESPN
4. Make up a nonsense name, or pick an unrelated or coined name, or
use a foreign phrase that sounds good:
Google, Yahoo, Zocor, Exxon, Dos Equis, TiVo, Xerox
5. Come up with a benefit-related name:
Spic and Span (household cleaner), Edge (shaving lather), Head &
Shoulders (shampoo), Nice 'n Easy (hair coloring), I Can't Believe
It's Not Butter! (margarine).
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Naming … continued
Many times, especially when you're dealing with a company name or a long-
established brand, changing the name isn't a realistic option. There is usually
too much equity already built up in the name to simply abandon it and take
Naming is most often a consideration when a company is coming out with a
new brand, and sometimes the issue is whether or not to use an existing
brand name for a new product.
Which type of name is best?
The ideal, or textbook, approach is to come up with a benefit-related
name (No. 5 above). It may be the most difficult, but it's usually the best
approach—especially for smaller companies that can't spend millions of
dollars each year to register a new name with their customer base and
communicate its positioning effectively to the target audience.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Naming … continued
When is it OK to use an existing brand name for a new product?
Once again, we look to the positioning to determine whether a new name is
appropriate. If the positioning promise of the new product—the key benefit—
is very different, then a new name is probably the best approach. If the
benefit is the same and the primary difference is in form or delivery method,
then the current name (perhaps with a modifier) is a very real possibility.
When Ford comes out with a new model, it generally names the model (with
a new name) but keeps the Ford brand on the vehicle. "Ford" communicates
something beyond and in addition to the model name. There's no reason not
to use the equity Ford has built in its corporate brand name.
Sometime the positioning for the car is so radically different from other cars
manufactured and marketed by the company that the focus is almost entirely
on the model name, and the corporate name is all but lost in the marketing
materials. Two examples of this in the Ford line would be Mustang and
Thunderbird. Those brands are so distinct from other Ford models that the
company doesn't want to confuse consumers by putting both brand names
on the vehicles.
2007 MarketingProfs LLC • All rights reserved.
Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
T ag l ine s
Most of the time, taglines take on a different role depending on the
naming approach the company has taken.
When the name is itself a benefit-oriented one, then the tagline should
extend the benefit to a more emotional or higher-level plane. It should
punctuate or enhance the positioning benefit, not confuse the target
audience with a completely different benefit.
When the name is not a benefit-oriented one, then the tagline needs to
state the benefit in a meaningful and memorable way.
Think about these famous taglines:
Brand Logo
"When you care enough to send the very best"
"The quicker picker-upper"
"We try harder."
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Taglines . continued
Think about these famous taglines:
Brand Logo
"Think different."
"Please don't squeeze the
"With a name like Smucker's, Smucker's
it has to be good."
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Taglines . continued
There are two particularly interesting taglines in this group—the last two. Do
you notice something different about those taglines compared with the
others? They include the brand names. Those are the best taglines because
you can't say the taglines without saying the name of the product. You can't
insert another name and have the tagline make sense. "Please don't squeeze
the Northern" just wouldn't cut it. Nor would "With a name like Welch's, it
has to be good."
Of course, Procter & Gamble, the marketer of Charmin, spent a lot of money
communicating the idea of "squeezably soft" with its advertising of Mr.
Whipple and his request that shoppers "Please don't squeeze the Charmin."
Most brands don't have that kind of marketing muscle—or millions of
dollars—behind them.
On another of its brands, Jif peanut butter, Procter & Gamble not only
included the brand name in the tagline, but used the tagline to take the
benefit to a new level. The name "Jif" suggests quick/convenient as the
benefit. But with a tagline that says "Choosy moms choose Jif," they implied
not only that the quality is superior (otherwise moms who care about their
kids wouldn't choose it), but that the customer is discerning ("choosy") and
astute enough to recognize the superior quality of Jif.
By the way, Procter & Gamble has since sold the Jif brand to Smucker's!
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Taglines . continued
Guidelines for good taglines
Some taglines are obviously better than others, and there are a few
guidelines, or rules of thumb, that correlate with good taglines:
It should contain no more than eight to nine words, and
fewer is better.
Cute and catchy is not as important as meaningful. People
remember big ideas about things that are important to them
long after they forget cute phrases, puns or jokes with a
Paint a word picture if you can. Choose words that grab
people and are easy to remember.
The goal is to communicate or enhance the positioning
benefit, not to entertain or amuse.
If you can, include the brand name in the tagline so it's
an integral part of it: "Please don't squeeze the Charmin,"
for example. Even if you don't have millions of dollars to
spend on marketing, this is the best approach. It's not
always easy, however, and most taglines do not do this.
It's less of a problem, of course, when the brand name
itself is benefit-oriented.
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Br ief
When we're developing taglines for a client, or any kind of copy for that
matter, we insist on a formal creative brief—a document that lays out the
specs for the work we're going to do and becomes the mutually agreed
upon standard against which the creative submissions will be judged.
Clients sometimes react negatively to that assignment. "Just come up with
something catchy and memorable," they'll say. "If you need a creative
worksheet, you prepare it. I'll trust you."
Of course, that's a recipe for failure
because no matter what you come
up with, they'll say, "You can do
better than that," or "I don't feel
totally comfortable with that."
The project never really ends
because the criteria for judging success are so ill-defined. It becomes a
subjective exercise, and that's not what copy and tagline development
are supposed to be.
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Brief . continued
We've learned over the years to have explicit agreement in advance when
we prepare copy or taglines. And that agreement takes the form of a
If you do a Google search for "creative brief" or "What is a creative brief?"
you'll find at least a dozen excellent descriptions, many with templates and
examples. Alternatively, make your own; it's not difficult.
Use the form on the following page, and provide thoughtful answers for each
question within these five key areas:
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Brief . continued
Creative Brief Components
Objective: What is the objective of the advertising, logo or tagline? What do we want
it to do? How do we want the target audience to react? How will we know when we
have a winner? Will we research it with the target audience? If so, how?
Industry overview: What are the market, category and industry like? Who are the
leaders? How do they go to market? Where do consumers and customers typically
learn about this category?
Target audience: Who is the primary target audience (not just demographics, but
lifestyle, attitudes, etc.)? The narrower you can define your audience, the better, and
the more you know about them, the better, too.
Positioning: What is the positioning benefit? What is the reason why? What makes
our brand different from and better than the competition?
Brand character: What is the brand attitude or personality? What tone should
we convey?
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Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Brief . continued
The creative brief is not a lengthy report; generally, it is one or two pages.
Sometimes, the brief writer adds or attaches additional exhibits, especially if
he or she thinks a nuance needs to be explained in greater detail or thinks it
is important to understand the workings of the technology. A good creative
brief gives the tagline developer the needed direction in a simple and direct
manner. In return, the client receives advertising, a tagline or other copy
that meets his or her needs.
Of course, if you're doing all the work yourself, which is not recommended,
you could skip the creative brief. Doing so is not a good idea, since you will
not have gone through the rigorous intellectual discipline that almost always
precedes a successful creative project.
Here's a short article from the Web site of a former creative director who
spent the bulk of his career at a large New York advertising agency, then as
a partner in a smaller agency. He's freelancing now, still creating powerful
advertising, developing logos and taglines, and applying what he's learned
about communication for smaller clients and independent agencies. He's
been reflecting on how important it is for a creative team (a copywriter and
an art director) to have a good creative brief:
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Brief . continued
The Creative Brief
The Creative Brief is at the heart of any design or creative project. It tells the
person developing the ad (or logo, or brochure, etc.) exactly what the ad is
supposed to do, who it's supposed to reach, and how it will be judged. It is
the "spec sheet" for the job, much as a blueprint and spec sheet are for
telling a builder what goes into a new house.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing for a professional creative team is to
get fuzzy directions up-front. When you don't have a complete grasp of the
situation, don't fully understand the objectives, and don't know the rules
of the game, it's hard to create advertising that will be outstanding. And
mediocre advertising is a waste of time and money.
That's why I won't begin to think creatively about a design or advertising
project until I have a really tight Creative Brief. If necessary, I'll involve a
marketing strategy specialist to ask the questions and interface with the
client to develop the Creative Brief. There's a certain knack to distilling all
the information down to just what a creative person needs to deliver on an
assignment. And often the very process of putting the Creative Brief together
forces a deeper understanding of business objectives, positioning, and
marketing strategy that are as important to a client as the advertising we
eventually develop.
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
The Creative Brief . continued
The real value of the Creative Brief, however, becomes evident when we
present the creative product and recommendation to the client. A smart
client will compare the recommendation to the "spec sheet" to see how well
it delivers the stated objectives and how closely the criteria are met. It's not
a subjective assessment of how well you "like" something. It's a question of
how well the advertising delivers the objectives that were established
A Creative Brief makes the development and approval process much
smoother and more objective. And it places the responsibility for setting the
strategy where it belongs – with the client. I'm always glad to offer thoughts
on strategy, but ultimately that onus belongs to the client. It's his/her
business, and the client must be comfortable with the approach.
(from the website of John Caggiano of Caggiano Associates:
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
Reso urces
For consumer/customer research as the basis
for sound positioning:
Allium Research and Analytics (www.alliumresearch.com)
For logos, naming and corporate-identity materials:
Caggiano Associates (www.jcaggiano.com)
For positioning and marketing strategy:
Dialogue Marketing Group, Inc. (www.dialoguemarketinggroup.com)
For taglines:
Taglines-R-Us (www.taglines-r-us.com)
The Tagline Factory (www.taglinefactory.com)
For general guidance and direction with marketing issues:
MarketingProfs.com (www.marketingprofs.com)
For books on positioning/marketing strategy:
Positioning: The battle for your mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout
(McGraw-Hill, 2000)
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Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
A bo ut the A uthor
Michael A. Goodman is a veteran marketing
management consultant with Dialogue Marketing
Group, Inc. (www.dialoguemarketinggroup.com).
Dialogue clients range from micro-businesses
and start-ups to the Fortune top 50 and span a
broad spectrum of product categories, industries
and business situations—both B2B and
consumer-oriented.
Goodman began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and
then moved into director and vice president roles at Frito-Lay (a subsidiary of
PepsiCo) and International Playtex, respectively. In his role as a consultant,
he deals primarily with positioning and branding issues, along with strategic
planning for all areas of the traditional marketing mix.
He has taught market research and marketing strategy at the undergraduate
and MBA levels and is the author of several books, including The Potato Chip
Difference (www.potatochipdifference.com) and Rasputin For Hire
(www.rasputinforhire.com). And he has been a leading expert on the
MarketingProfs Know-How Exchange for several years. (See this
profile/interview with Goodman.)
He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].
2007 MarketingProfs LLC • All rights reserved.
Small Business How-To-Guide
Positioning, Naming and Taglines Template— A Step-by -Step Approach
A bo ut M ar ke ti n gP rofs
Founded in January 2001, MarketingProfs is a publishing company
that specializes in providing both strategic and tactical marketing know-how
for marketing and business professionals in organizations worldwide through
a full range of online media.
With more than 200,000 members and 300 contributors, MarketingProfs
provides marketers with practical tools and information in many forms,
including: articles, online seminars, templates, benchmark survey reports,
buyer's guides, a discussion forum and a blog. Updated weekly,
MarketingProfs content helps professionals stay current and effective.
2007 MarketingProfs LLC • All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.mjfgroup.biz/Literature/SmBusiness_Positioning.pdf
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