Positioning is the soul of branding, advertising, and all marketing communications. That means, it better be right. To make sure it is, our industry has developed various disciplined approaches—including complex templates—for drafting positioning statements in a methodical way.
The good news is that these templates generally call for a “brand differentiator” or “core idea,” which is the essential and actionable part of the positioning statement. And these templates can certainly be helpful when you’re trying to generate consensus among a multidisciplinary group of people who may not all be highly practiced in the art of positioning.
On the downside, these wordy, complex constructions can mask the lack of a truly insightful and valuable positioning. The fact is, positioning is all about the strategic power of a single, essential idea. It should never, ever be a list of product features and benefits, as we occasionally see.
The real challenge of positioning—the art of positioning—is to chip away extraneous words and information until all that is left is the single, shining spark that will ignite your brand.
So, of course, natrel is perfectly comfortable taking the template approach when it is in keeping with the client’s culture and expectations. We do it every day. But we always keep our eye on the ball—that single differentiating idea at the core of the exercise. And for clients who are comfortable letting us drive the process in our own way, all our best thinking may boil down to a single, clear, and potent phrase of three or four words.
To learn more about how to optimize your positioning and branding process, contact Allan Trent at atrent@natrelusa.com or by phone at 973-292-8400.
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