Caney Design Marketing Communications 101
Differentiate Your Obvious Advantage
Exploit perceptions – you can’t change them
Claim leadership wherever competitors allow
It’s not about being “better” or claiming “quality”
“Positioning your business for success” and “finding your unique selling proposition” were the popular approaches to marketing that drove successful campaigns of yesteryear. Effective strategies today focus on “differentiating the obvious” – and that is exactly what I have been advocating, practicing, and teaching for the past thirty-some years.
Differentiate yourself
In a nutshell, all marketing has to do is to give the customer an obvious reason to buy your product or service instead of the competitor’s product. In other words, you MUST meaningfully differentiate yourself, your company, or your products to establish an obvious (real and believable) benefit for the customer.
It is surprising, sometimes shocking, how many businesses have not appropriately identified and taken advantage of their obvious advantage over competitors. Most think they do, but to the contrary, I typically encounter claims among similar businesses that could be seemingly interchangeable. In searching for an obvious differentiator to filter those claims, you must thoroughly understand your customers’ positive perceptions about your business, and then claim those positions in your marketing communications.
But be forewarned: As the advertising guru David Ogilvy always noted, “Perception is the reality, all else is illusion.” An effective marketing message depends on creating a filter of obviousness that helps to guide and shape the customers’ perceptions. Ignoring that advice can actually do damage to preexisting positive perceptions.
Claim all available positive perceptions
Simply stated, an obvious advantage should play to positive perceptions about your company and the perceived weaknesses of your competitors. To change those perceptions in any reasonable time (if ever) is futile. Case after case has proven this to be an absolute and a big waste of money – even though we all imagine it is possible. When done correctly however, even negative perceptions (or a competitor’s positive perceptions) can be positioned and presented to your advantage.
Several years ago, I met the Hertz marketing guy who stalled a powerful challenge from Avis (“We try harder”) with a campaign that claimed, “We’ll tell you why they’re No.2.” That was an enormously effective, efficient, and simple campaign against a challenge to a position already taken.
A long-time client and manufacturer of assembly-line tools used to rightfully direct me to “Claim advantages wherever competitors allow us.” Our objective was to reposition the competition even to the point of finding segments within their perceived strengths where we might claim a customer advantage. And it always worked. Do understand that this aggressive client was also a bit paranoid in correctly understanding that when we caught the attention of a competitor, they would most likely “fight back.” But because we scored first, they were the ones on the defensive.
Another long-time client, a Harvard MBA heading a niche engineering organization, is a genius at changing the playing field to suit his “obvious difference” position. Every month we wrote and placed trade articles that were not meant to change market perceptions as much as make and strengthen our stated position as the dominate one. Over thirty years later, he still owns the now-leading market positions we “created.”
Leadership claims benefit most
Creating a leadership position is one of the best ways, and actually the easiest way, to create differentiation. As a grey-beard marketing guy, I can tell you (and I suspect so can your sales people) that being perceived as the leader makes customers comfortable in selecting your solutions over others. And with leadership, you also gain market respect and influence.
Successfully claiming leadership, however, can be accomplished in many ways. Some companies claim to lead sales in a particular niche, some claim performance leadership, some take a technology leadership position, and one of our clients has successfully claimed “full-service” leadership. In another case, a startup technology company failed in their attempt to achieve the performance required for market success, but that did not stop them from claiming to be the leading experts in that particular technology (and raising additional money for further development).
There are several other effective positions of leadership, but the overriding attitude is typically this: “If it isn’t already claimed, do you want to own it?” That is a very smart marketing lesson learned, and one I’ve frequently applied with expected successful results. What positions in the minds of your customers do you want to own? One wise client frequently proved his proposition that, “I’d rather be first claiming leadership than claim being marginally better.”
It’s not about being “better” or claiming “quality”
And one more important thought about owning claims. Quality is NOT a differentiating leadership position. Who doesn’t claim it? At the airport a few months ago I saw a backpack with the logo of a well-established accounting firm and their slogan, “Quality in everything we do.” That’s something every business might claim and differentiates nothing! Don’t ever believe that big companies get it more right.
If you think you’re primarily in a battle of “our better product versus their product,” you’re falling into another trap that has consistently proven to be a weak marketing position. As I’ll confidently repeat, successful marketing comes from a battle of perceptions. Buy into that, and you’ve initiated the process to real marketing success.
More lessons learned
The search for a successful marketing position and strategy is a search for what is already obvious – and effective obviousness nearly always turns out to be something plain, simple, and evident. Simple is the key word here. We find meaningful differentiation in customer perceptions (positive for your company and negative for competitors), turn them into customer benefits, and claim leadership positions, especially in segments not owned by competitors.
Common sense and reality, based on collective knowledge and experience, are usually the parents of an obvious marketing truth and should be trusted – certainly more so than an accumulation of market research and industry opinions, more than egos, and more than wishful thinking.
Most marketing problems inadvertently lie within company inactions to the point where your “brand” may be undermined for lack of claiming (or understanding) your obvious strengths. All marketing efforts need to be pointing in the same direction with a competitive strategy that is grown from obvious differentiating perceptions. That always works best, and little else does.
And I also propose that company growth and meeting sales projections is not a worthy goal in itself. “Growth is the result of doing things right” is the handwritten sign that’s been above my desk for years. Our most successful clients are adamant on defining an obvious differentiation that produces claims of leadership that result in growth. A cursory review of our website (CaneyDesign.com) will provide evidence of this proposition through many examples of successful campaigns.