I challenge you to build a better ladder

When tasked with the creative challenge of promoting a brand, product or service, consider how you want to position that brand, product or service in your target audience’s mind. What do you want the consumer to think about when they come in contact with your message? What emotions do you want to conjure up? What do you want the consumer to associate with your brand, product or service? As the creative strategist, it’s your goal to fulfill your target audience’s need, develop a solution to their immediate problem and make your brand, product or service relevant in their mind.

So what is positioning? 
Businessdictionary.com defines positioning as a marketing strategy that aims to make a brand occupy a distinct position, relative to competing brands, in the mind of the customer.

We are creatures of habit. 
Take a moment to reflect on your own purchasing habits. What deodorant, shampoo and laundry detergent do you use? Chances are when it comes to choosing brands, products and services you’ve got a few personal favorites. I’ll be so bold as to state you probably stick with the same brands in each category. You might try a new one every so often, but chances are you go right back to your tried and true favorites.

It’s a jungle out there!
To cope with the explosion of brands, products and services vying for our attention daily, we’ve conditioned ourselves to mentally rank them. This process can be visualized by imagining a series of ladders in the mind. Each ladder represents a completely different brand, product or service category (ladder 1: deodorant, ladder 2: shampoo, ladder 3: laundry detergent…). Upon each rung of a ladder sits a different brand within the ladder’s brand, product or service category. (1) The ultimate goal for any brand, product or service is to occupy the top rung of their category. Once a brand, product or service is sitting on that top rung, it’s extremely difficult for any other brand to knock the holder of that top rung off. The best they can hope for is to settle for the second, third rung or worse!

This visualization is crucial to remember when positioning a brand, product or service. If the chances of knocking one of those top three competitors off the rungs of your chosen ladder are so slim what other options do you have?

The answer is quite simple… build your own ladder! While there isn’t much room on the ladders currently found in your target audience’s mind, there is more than enough room to build a new one and place your brand, product or service on that highly coveted top rung.
 
So you’ve decided you want to build a new ladder. Where do you go from there? My suggestion: do a S.W.O.T. analysis to determine your brand, product or service’s (and the competitions’) Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. What are you and the competition doing right? What are you doing wrong? What unique attributes does your brand, product or service bring to the consumer? Remember, the consumer always asks him/herself “What’s in it for me?” Fulfill a need, be the solution to their immediate problem and make your brand, product or service relevant in the consumer’s mind. Look at the market landscape and identity areas that currently aren’t being utilized. If you find such an area, start building that ladder and get your brand, product or service firmly planted onto that top rung!

What is your brand, product or service’s unique selling proposition? 
I alluded to this in the previous paragraph by asking you to determine what unique attributes your brand, product or service brings to the consumer.

Entrepreneur.com defines the unique selling proposition (USP) as the factor presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition. Unless you can pinpoint what makes your business unique in a world of similar competitors, you cannot target your promotion efforts successfully. (2) You can thank ad guru and marketing master Rosser Reeves for coming up with the concept of developing a USP. In 1961, Reeves outlined the promotion technique in his book “Reality of Advertising.”

He defines a USP has having three parts:
> Each ad must make a proposition: "Buy this product and you get these benefits".

> The proposition must be unique: something that your competitors do not, cannot or will not offer.

> The proposition must sell: it must be something consumers really want; it pulls them over to your product.

In essence, a USP briefly and clearly explains a single quality about your product that lets it stand out against the competition. (3)

In conclusion
There are many “me too” companies in the market today touting similar messages about similar products or services, and yet there’s still plenty of unchartered real estate in the consumer’s mind for our brands, products and services to stake claim and begin building a better ladder. Working as creative thinkers we must figure out ways to connect with the consumer helping them see the value in what is being communicated. There is concept and strategy built into every mark we make. Design is so much more about psychology (what makes us tick) than it ever is about just making stuff look “cool.”


Blog Resources:
(1) http://teamaltman.com/2010/05/understanding-the-ladders-in-your-head/
(2) http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82480.html
(3) http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Rosser_Reeves.htm