Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

What you must look for is a name that begins the positioning process, a name that tells the prospect what the product’s major benefit is. Like Head & Shoulders shampoo, Intensive Care skin lotion, and Close-Up toothpaste. Or like DieHard for a longer-lasting battery. Shake ’n Bake for a new way to cook chicken. Edge for a shaving cream that let

Almost all the advantages accrue to the leader. In the absence of any strong reasons to the contrary, consumers will probably select the same brand for their next purchase as they selected for their last purchase.

The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.

Do you match your position?

With rare exceptions, a company should almost never change its basic positioning strategy. Only its tactics, those short-term maneuvers that are intended to implement a longterm strategy.

The factory creneau One common mistake in looking for creneaus is filling a hole in the factory rather than one in the mind.

To find a unique position, you must ignore conventional logic. Conventional logic says you find your concept inside yourself or inside the product. Not true. What you must do is look inside the prospect’s mind. You won’t find an “uncola” idea inside a 7-Up can. You find it inside the cola drinker’s head.

The secret to establishing a successful position is to keep two things in balance: (1) A unique position with (2) an appeal that’s not too narrow.

Timing is critical.