Henry Ford (1987: 67) said in 1922: ‘A manufacturer is not through with this customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer. In the case of an automobile the sale of the machine is only something in the nature of an introduction.’ The whole approach relating to creation, delivery, and consumption is vital recognition of marketing as more than simply the catalyst of an exchange transaction (Webster, 1992).
Levitt (1960: 50) describes the product in terms of a solution to a particular customer problem in a hierarchy of needs:
Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering, and finally consuming it.
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning 27 The ‘whole cluster of things’ includes the perceptions of the product or service as a means to satisfy the needs of the customer. Yankelovich (1964: 90) describes positioning as ‘small, marginal differences (that) appeal to different market segments’. He refers to positioning when describing differences in buyer attitudes, motivations, values, patterns of usage, aesthetic preferences, and degree of susceptibility as an alternative to demographic segmentation. There is a clear implication that satisfac- tion is not simply through the more tangible attributes of the product.
Trout (1969: 53) argues: ‘the need to create a “position” in the prospect’s mind . . . the name of your company or product is becoming more and more important . . . to secure a worthwhile position for a corporate name, you need a thought to go with it’. This, says Trout, means that a message should not be communicated in a vacuum but take account of competi- tors’ positions as well. Levitt (1969: 331–2) adds credibility to this creative philosophy espoused by Jack Trout when Vice President of the New York agency Ries Cappiello Colwell:
Truth is what man does, not what he says. And everywhere he does the same thing – he modifies, embellishes, rewrites, and repackages an otherwise crude, drab, and general oppressive reality. He does it in order that life might be made for the moment more tolerable. What he does goes by many names – poetry, art, fashion, architecture, religion.
The poet does not offer an anatomical description of a Grecian urn.
He offers an exaggerated, lyrical, palpably unrecognisable rendering.
Commerce copies the poet, except in this case it is called ‘adver- tising’, ‘industrial design’, and ‘packaging’. Yet the poet’s objective is quite the same as that of the adman who lyricises extravagantly about the latest-model automobile. Both seek the heightening effect on the minds and emotions of their audiences.
Trout (1971: 116–17) declares that the positioning concept reaches beyond the marketing ‘noise’ of ‘an over-communicated society’ by avoiding the need to ‘be everything to everybody’ and the danger of misidentification with competitors. Trout and Ries (1972a: 38) confirm this approach through their recognition that positioning is ‘the very objective of the advertising itself’. The word positioning has been ‘popularized’
through the proposition: ‘Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect’
(Ries and Trout, 1986a: 2). Changes in the marketing mix do not really change the product but act as ‘cosmetic changes done for the purpose
of securing a worthwhile position in the prospect’s mind’ (ibid., 2).
Positioning is seen as a communications issue in order to manipulate consumer perceptions of reality (Ries and Trout, 1989) and a powerful tool in competitive warfare.
A principal purpose of segmentation is to indicate how various segments perceive the product in order to indicate a way to concoct a marketing mix. The mix secures a particular position or impression in the mind of the target market of the product. Market position can be effected by the whole marketing mix thus underlining the importance of a positioning driven strategy in the construction of the marketing mix (Lovelock, 1984).
Effective positioning is one of marketing’s most critical tasks (Shostack, 1987), and even an attempt to make a competitive brand look inferior (Apostolidis, Sohoritis, Vlachakis, and Kioulafas, 1989). And yet, notions of the marketer as a ‘mixer of ingredients’ of the ‘4Ps’ of the marketing mix are far too simplistic and may easily misguide both academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1990a).
The use of a consistent and repeated story or message over years in situations of low involvement and low differentiation to gain competi- tive advantage is described as a ‘slow-burn process’ (Harris, 1987: 219).
Selection criteria are probably viewed unconsciously, with attitudes forming through exposure to the product, the packaging, the adver- tising and the price. Emotional reactions to advertisements have been shown to account for as much variance as cognitive reactions in explaining advertising effectiveness demonstrating that emotional appeals, are likely to be highly effective (Edell and Burke, 1987; Kalra and Goodstein, 1998). Much information processing is unconscious and a particular problem in mature markets is that organizations should invest early in strategic analysis and new policy formulation so as to avoid drift and loss of preference recognition amongst consumers (Schofield and Arnold, 1988).
Whilst positioning is one of the central ideas of the marketing discipline, marketing academics, as well as practitioners, may think of different things when using the term (Muhlbacher, Dreher and Gabriel-Ritter, 1994).
Communicability and credibility are the two aspects of the product con- cept that need to concern marketers – communicability refers to the ease with which the basic concept can be communicated, and some concepts are easily communicated, yet not credible (Czepiel, 1992). The positioning in the mind, the need for a customer relationship and the intimacy of that relationship has commonly been determined by differentiation strategies but ‘differentiation of an irrelevant attribute – “meaningless”
differentiation – can create a valued difference between brands and,
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning 29 in the process, a meaningfully differentiated brand’ (Carpenter, Glazer, and Nakamoto, 1994: 339).
Lautman (1993) tries to ‘dimensionalize’ the product or service for a target segment by breaking down positioning into three components termed ABCs, or attributes, benefits, and claims. He underlines that promises and claims are the fundamental building blocks of advertising copy and draws attention to the fact that advertisers use body language, facial expressions, and situational visuals among the many non-verbal techniques to imply superiority to the competition. An effective position can be defined as one that enables a brand or service to occupy a preferred and unique niche in a customer’s mind that is also consistent with the overall marketing strategy. Positioning becomes meaningful to a consumer only when it is perceived as providing a positive benefit or removing a problem: ‘Positioning is generally referred to as a process of finding and establishing a distinct place in the market that is determined by the customers’ view of one’s own offering in comparison to competing alternatives’ (Muhlbacher, Dreher and Gabriel-Ritter, 1994: 288).
Muhlbacher, Dreher and Gabriel-Ritter (1994), however, draw attention to the importance of a congruency analysis between the aspirations of customers and the abilities and resources that a company needs in order to satisfy each segment. They point out that all elements of a company’s behaviour can affect its position in the minds of their customers and propose a triangular relationship between customers (their needs and aspirations), the company (the dominant values, specific skills and resources) and its competitors (their values, skills and resources) as a foundation for positioning. They conclude that a model of the positioning process needs to link customer needs and aspirations, competitors’
strengths and weaknesses, and the strategic value of internal corporate skills and resources. This comes close to regarding positioning not as a cosmetic tool, but rather, the basis of a relationship founded on a form of mutual reciprocity.
Market segmentation studies result in the development of product marketing plans and alternative product strategy by repositioning closer to ideal points of sizeable segments of the market as well as distancing oneself from competitive products ( Johnson, 1995). Nevertheless, pos- itioning is about the strengths and weaknesses of the competition remembering that the same product appeals to different audiences for different reasons (Friesen, 1996). As Porter (1996: 68) says: ‘The essence of strategic positioning is to choose activities that are different from rivals.’ Unless positioning strategy is the choice and performance of alternative activities to rivals then a strategy is nothing more than a
marketing slogan and will not withstand competition (Porter, 1996).
Emotional appeals are likely to have strong effects in explaining advertising effectiveness (Kalra and Goodstein, 1998).
Fournier, Dobscha and Mick (1998) suspect that when companies ask customers for friendship, loyalty and respect, they often do not recipro- cate with friendship, loyalty and respect. They cite examples of such behaviour as loyal customers swamped by inappropriate mailings that seem to treat them as new marketing targets and ignore any long-standing relationship. They conclude that this has brought the viability of the entire marketing discipline into question by actually making customers less trusting and suggest that ‘we’ve taken advantage of the words for long enough’ (51). The positioning decision has to take account of the ability of the business to fulfil claims and promises before making wayward claims of ability and competence.
The vast increase in the number and availability of products has led to products and services becoming more and more similar with companies imitating each others’ technological advantages with the consequence that emotional logic has become the single most important business driver ( Jones, 2000). As Hatch and Schultz (2001: 130) point out: ‘Our research into 100 companies around the world over ten years shows that a company must align three essential elements – call them strategic stars – to create a strong corporate brand: vision, culture, and image . . . aligning the stars takes concentrated managerial skill and will.’ This reflects recognition that emotion alone is insufficient to establish a long-term relationship and a need for the application of genuine facets in the establishment of a positioning strategy.