A brief overview of perhaps the least understood marketing concept: positioning. It’s what you need to get clear on before you start advertising.

Imagine you’re a wealthy business person and your birthday party is coming up. You’ve decided to book a comedian to perform for your friends and you can afford any performer in the world. Who do you choose? Maybe you come up with a short-list of people you think are equally funny: Billy Connolly, Woody Allen, Tina Fey and your next door neighbour, Tim, who does amateur stand-up.

I put it to you that you have a clear mental picture of where each of these people sit in the comedy landscape.

Who would you choose if your friends were mostly Jewish psychologists? Who would you choose if they were mostly people working in politics? If they were mostly blue collar workers? Each performer occupies particular mental territory in your comedic imagination. That territory is their positioning. Connolly is positioned strongly as ‘outrageous’ and ‘irreverent’; Allen ranks for ‘sophisticated’, Fey ranks for ‘sex appeal’ and ‘current affairs’.

Probably you’re unlikely to choose Tim because you recognise that in the minds of the audience he doesn’t have a profile. He hasn’t established a positioning in the market. He might be as funny as the rest, but for the important attributes of ‘famous’ or ‘credible’, he doesn’t rank.

We build up these mental pictures of where people sit in relation to everyone else – different people stand out in different areas.

Same applies to business positionings. What marketers try to do is mark out mental territory and make that territory as proprietary as possible. Because if our positioning is powerfully clear, it will jump into the mind of the consumer easily.

Some positionings are more valuable than others. A surgeon would rather be positioned highly on ‘technical expertise’ than ‘lives close by’. So choose a positioning that is meaningful to your target market.

Pick the absolute most concise positioning. If you are trying to position your widget as ‘convenient’, ‘value-for-money’ and ‘long-lasting’ you’re going to confuse the market. Be single-minded. You don’t have a $50 million budget. (And even if you did…)

In all cases we’re trying to latch onto territory that we can own. Territory that becomes identified with your brand and no-one else’s. It’s hard to own the positioning ‘quality’ if everyone in your industry says they are the best quality. And they probably do. Choose something that you can own and take into account your budget and your competitors’ budgets. You might want to own ‘convenient takeaway’ but you probably can’t match McDonalds’ budget.

Bind the positioning to your brand name so that when customers think of that positioning, they think of your brand. If you are the top-of-mind product you are likely to get the first phone call the customer makes.

Can you successfully communicate that positioning in your advertising? If you’re saying ‘better quality finish’ than your competitors’ furniture, you’d better make sure the finish looks better in your photography than theirs.

Finally, your positioning should reflect who you are as a business. If your advertising says ‘reliable’ and the customer experience is not that, you’re in trouble. If their experience with you reinforces what you’re promising, you’re unusual. People will talk about you. Otherwise you’re just another bullshit artist. I mean advertiser.

Summary
1. Choose a positioning that is majorly meaningful to your target market.
2. Make it incredibly concise. One idea. Three words. That kind of concise.
3. Make sure you can own the positioning, given your competition, your budget and your advertising message.
4. Make sure your positioning is a reflection of the experience you actually deliver.

I ran the first Web Promotion SHOCK seminar yesterday and it was poorly attended.

Getting the marketing right is a process that almost always involves risk and failure. I remember a guy who got promoted at Colgate-Palmolive while I was working there. He’d launched a new product into test market. Got the formulation wrong, the packaging wrong and the advertising wrong. But the market research showed why it failed and the company then knew what to do. Risk, failure, knowledge.

In the case of my seminar, I believe I got the proposition wrong and the creative wrong, so I need to go back and do some more testing. I think I’ll do this with AdWords. But where I failed spectacularly was in my attempts to get some PR; promotion that has an editorial component, is unpaid and carries the implicit endorsement of a third party.

I spoke to the Breakfast DJ of a commercial radio station who said he’d be prepared to do an interview. Right demographic and all of that. He asked for an outline, so I sent him some suggested questions and how I would respond. It was light and entertaining stuff about Google and web promotion but I proposed to mention the seminar. He emailed me back saying this: “this is an ad and I will get my ass kicked by management”. He explained that because I was charging for the seminar, company policy deemed the content commercial. Obviously they don’t want to encourage that, given that they’re in the business of charging for advertising. So the interview did not take place.

I had a similar response from the local newspaper. This is commercial; can’t do a story.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Every radio station does interviews with authors. Authors are blatantly promoting their books. Commercially. What is the difference between an author promoting a book and a speaker promoting a talk? The policy that is currently in place gives free publicity to large book publishers many of whom have the capacity to pay for advertising but it withholds free air time from the whole speaking industry; small operators with precious little advertising budget. The clear intent is to make editorial comment unavailable in an effort to extract paid advertising. The listener misses out on good content and the radio network restricts itself to larger advertisers.

Ironically, our public television and radio network, the ABC, have exactly the same approach: free plugs for authors and nobody else. Of course they won’t take your money for commercial advertising. So the effect of our current media structure is to shut the commercial sector out of public discourse.

Society would be positively affected if the public media lightened up about commerce or the commercial media lightened up about editorial. I’m suggesting there is room for another media network; one that preferences good stories and good content, irrespective of commercial content. Create a media channel accessible to professional consultants and businesses. One that does not rule you out of public discourse because you charge money for a product or service.

Here is a problem; here is a solution. It costs money. Get over it.

Mischief. The first twelve Advertising Agency web sites I looked at are making no effort to attract web traffic. Either they have as much work as they want or they don’t believe that potential clients search the internet for advertising agencies. Maybe they rely on being in the Yellow Pages.

All sites run fancy Flash animation; none of them deprecate properly for people with JavaScript turned off. The full Flash sites are extremely annoying for users. Hit the Back button in your browser while visiting The Brand Agency, Campaign Palace or Naked and get thrown out of the site. Oh good, I get to look at that animation all over again!

None of the sites have Title tags that include any reference to ‘advertising’, ‘media’ or ‘marketing’. This is part of the reason why none of their sites are found when you type “advertising agency” into Google.

None of the sites have Description tags. Which means that when you type ‘saatchi‘ into Google it tells you this about the company:

Saatchi & Saatchi PR in Romania has been appointed by Alpha Bank, a leading name in the financial sector, to handle its PR account. READ MORE > … Compelling content for English-speaking people interested in Romanian bank Public Relations – alas, I’m one of the few …

Saatchi’s site was broken when I visited; none of the links worked. I tried IE and Firefox and re-downloaded Flash but still nothing. I emailed their webmaster. Waiting on a response. Update: links now working.

When you type GPYR into Google it tells you this about the company:
home; about us · work · services · tools · contact us · brand partners · careers. George Patterson Y&R is Australia’s newest (and oldest) advertising agency …

‘Wunderman‘ gives you this:
Welcome to Wunderman : Welcome to the site for Wunderman, the original direct marketing agency. To get our conversation… Welcome, welcome. Should be called Doorman, not Wunderman.

Clearly none of the agencies understand that you can control the way Google presents your search result. Many of the sites don’t work if you omit the www; this can be fixed with a simple re-direct. And it seems none of them know how to get a full Flash site properly indexed by Google, thereby increasing web traffic. I digress.

DDB have a one page site that allows you only an email link. Times are tough. The design of many sites, such as BMF and Clemenger has not been updated in years. The gratuitous use of sound is particularly 1990s.

JWT, Grey and Singleton Ogilvy make up the twelve.

It’s as if they created their sites before Google was invented.

Oh! Found one traditional agency who know what they’re doing: Marketforce use the words “marketing” and “advertising” in their Title tag and have written one Description tag. As a result, they come up at #12 when you search for “Advertising Agency”. A bit of tweaking would put them in the top couple.

I’m running some half-day seminars on web promotion shortly in Perth. If you’d like to pre-register, give me a yell.

Perhaps you’ve been listening to Rupert Murdoch’s Boyer Lectures? He has an awful voice but he says a lot of sensible things – as you can imagine, he has the benefit of an unusually wide perspective. His dislike of elites and authority mark him as an Australian; his enthusiasm for change explains why he lives where he does.

Rupert was optimistic about newspapers. He understands that newspapers are a brand, that they are about trust and that their oxygen is the reader. Using that brand, he argues, News Corp will deliver relevant information in whatever technology format is appropriate. Spot on.

Much hand-wringing by journalists nonetheless about the death of journalism now that the Rivers of Gold (classified advertising), are flowing to the Internet. The old newspaper business model said, we will provide the reader with journalism and companies will pay for advertising so they can access those readers. But readers now search Internet databases; a far better system for the classifieds buyer. Simultaneously, the Internet is competing with newspapers for eyeballs. What is to be done?

What newspapers have is credibility, so they should look to use this competitive advantage in subject areas which are perceived as valuable. Where credibility is currently lacking.

This is most feasible in areas where newspapers have not traditionally trodden. Take Search Engine Optimisation for example; a subject close to my economic heart. The web is full of SEO experts, all giving away free content and trying to up-sell you into subscriptions. The problem is, you don’t buy a subscription unless you have a high level of trust. You with me? Would I pay $100 a year for the opinion of one expert? Hmmm. Would I pay $500 for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal’s Best in SEO? If it has 20 contributors and a WSJ banner, I probably would.

Would people pay $100 for a subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald’s Guide to Selling on the Internet? Many would. Would business people pay $500 for the New York Times’ Internet Networking subscription? Yes. The Economist’s Web Marketing? The Guardian’s Internet Relationships? The Mirror’s Best Bargains?

Newspapers should be looking at the e-book market and turning some of those products into premium, branded subscriptions. They should develop new products which deliver expert content in technical and specialist areas. You can’t justify charging for ‘news’ or ‘opinion’ or ‘business’ because they are established as free info but anything new is fair game. Industry specific subscriptions will also work if the content is extensive.

Your mainstream publication then carries normal articles plus pointers to Subscription Only articles, both on the web and in printed form. Newspaper management are not used to new products. They’re used to the monolithic publication. But the splintering of news into specialist subscription publications is a logical response to losing your advertisers. In effect, the newspaper could become the Editor of the Internet.

One for the romantics. Possibly not safe for work. Depends where you work.

Err, outtake number three was cute.

Advertising taboo subjects is a fascinating business. I think more than any other form of communication, advertising has helped counter our Victorian legacy. Sanitary products, sexual health, dealing with cancer… it’s not just sellin’ stuff.

Via BoingBoing.

Proof reading? We put it through the spell checker. Not my fault Microsoft think ‘dinning’ is a word. Probably means making a big noise. Anyway, we sent it to the client and they signed off on it, so NOT problem belong us.

The Official Visitors’ Guide to Melbourne in Spring is published by Destination Melbourne, the peak body for tourism in Melbourne and Regional Victoria. Soon to be renamed Destination Melbourne and Regional Victoria.

Looks like they’re targeting the American market: they spell “splendour” the American way; “splendor”.

The booklet is written in co-operative marketingesque. “There is so much to see and do in Melbourne that it’s almost overwhelming. Just as well the city is cleverly planned, making getting around and about a breeze”. It goes on to point out that it’s easy to travel on Melbourne’s extensive transport network. I guess you just PAY YOUR MONEY and GET ON BOARD!

Will the shopping cater for your every need? Will the restaurants be many and varied? Will the city have unique character? A full spectrum of activities? Great food and wine? Then I must be in, err, any city in the world.

Tourism promotional copy in Australia is predictable and awful. This publication is no worse than any other. The bureaucracy churns them out, businesses advertise with precious little return and the tourists wade through 128 pages of crap thinking, please, mercy, just tell me the interesting bits.

Here’s what happened. Microsoft’s new agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, did some research that told them:

1. ‘Bill Gates is inextricably linked with Microsoft and he is perceived positively’ [If Robert Mugabe gave $37B to charity he would be seen positively too].

2. Apple is seen as more cool than Windows

So they’ve created this campaign with Seinfeld and Gates, who are not, it turns out, the next Abbott and Costello. First ad. Second ad – runs 4.5 minutes. Even if this campaign worked better (Gates is not an actor and the script is at best, mildly amusing) it’s strategically flawed.

Windows is the number one operating system in the market by a factor of ten. It’s not healthy for them to be responding to the number two guy. Besides, how are you going to out-cool Apple? Apple make cool hardware. THINGS that look cool. Play music. Have innovative interfaces. You are not going to overturn that with lame sit-com humour and nothing to back it up.

Here are some alternative strategies and executions:

1. Personalise Microsoft by interviewing their bright young computer scientists. Let them talk about the projects they’re working on. Show off Silverlight and Sea Dragon and other cool software technologies. Replace the Gates image with young, smart people.

2. Associate Microsoft with business use. Find some personable execs with business stories that highlight the increased productivity that Windows has delivered. But make them REAL people and REAL stories. Don’t patronise us and don’t shove it down our throats.

3. Let us know you’re serious! Introduce us to Steve Ballmer. “Hi, I’m Steve Ballmer; the fat, bald guy who runs Microsoft now. Let me take a minute to tell you some of the things we’re working on”. Okay, maybe skip the ‘fat, bald’ bit. My point is, owning the serious territory is important. Apple can’t go there. Microsoft could position themselves as the RATIONAL choice. Value for money, wider choice of third-party software, huge installed base of MS Office …

Hard to know what the right direction is without access to research but the current campaign does not have enough humour to overcome the lack of authenticity. It’s more spin when what they need is to be more grounded.

I’ve seen two TV ads for the Carpenter Labor Government in Western Australia, both with low production values and I think strategically ineffective. The hero is the Premier, dressed in a smart suit and tie. In the first ad, he never looks at the camera. By now this guy is a practised media performer and in natural mode, he comes across as a genuine, intelligent person. But some bone-head has conceived this ad where the Premier is looking away from the camera for the whole time. The effect is to make him look wooden and shifty.

Two common mistakes in contemporary advertising are to underestimate the intelligence of the audience and overstate your own worth. Both are at work here. The ad starts with the assertion that the state government inherited a weak economy and has turned it into a powerhouse.

Taking credit for this undermines credibility. Far better to have said, ‘as you know WA is currently the fastest growing economy; we’re actually not taking credit for that but we believe we’ve done a good job of managing state finances and investing in sensible projects…’ Political advertising should aim to cement credibility and make you look reasonable, not show how partisan you are.

The more recent ad contrasts said schmick Premier with an unflattering photo of the Opposition Leader. It’s black and white, out of focus and his eyes are closed. The audio describes Colin Barnett as a ‘flip-flop’ man (new heights in sophisticated invective) and it verges on insulting. The Labor Government is in a position of strength but using negative advertising packed with pejoratives makes them look petty and insecure. It’s just shabby.

It looks like strategy is being dictated by party leaders who have little understanding of advertising and insufficient contact with mainstream society.

I was surprised to see an ad for Woolworths during the Network Seven Olympic coverage. You would have thought Coles’ position as major sponsor [see comments] would have given them some category exclusivity.

Research has consistently shown that sponsorship is almost always a poor way of spending advertising dollars. More evidence recently from the Adelaide School of Commerce.

The consumer is so deluged with advertising the association between the event and the advertiser is quickly forgotten. Who sponsored the Melbourne Cup? Who sponsored The Australian Open this year? Who sponsored the last AFL Grand Final? Answers below…

Of course, sometimes TV stations sell sponsorship packages that discount the cost of advertising. Even then it’s hard to justify; you’re buying frequency at the expense of reach. In other words, the same people are seeing your ad over and over. The better strategy is to spread your advertising as widely as possible.

For premium events like those mentioned and certainly for the Olympics, you pay a premium. The justification is that you are hitting such a large audience. In effect this is saying, good reach, less frequency. Offset I believe by the premium and the fact that you have to buy a large number of spots.

Why do apparently rational companies buy into this?

Well maybe not, here’s a contrary view from Mediacom’s Anne Parsons.

One of the interesting things with sponsorships is that the advertising adopts the theme of the event. At present, almost all advertisements feature China and Australian sport. This would be clever if you were the only advertiser doing it. Unfortunately, just about every sponsor has gone down this path, which minimises the amount of cut-through the advertiser gets. Just remind me; this ad I’ve seen 180 times with the beautiful Chinese girls and lots of red in it, who’s that for again?

Partly it happens because the ad agency has to justify the extraordinary expense of the Olympic sponsorship. In light of the massive spend and the fact that the agency was party to the decision it would be a brave Creative Director to advocate another theme. And yet, an ad which avoided the Olympic theme would have stood out. Gorilla in a jockstrap.

For what it’s worth, I like the Coles campaign. The ad acknowledges parents who support their little sporting prodigies. It features normal looking people. Scary concept.

Answers: Emirates, Kia, Toyota. Hope you got ‘em right. About $30m worth of sponsorship there.

The ABC are advertising their Local Radio stations on the teev. Fair enough. The ad features snatches of audio from a range of different programs and a fairly static visual background. It’s dreadfully unappealing.

When you watch television, and this will come as a shock to most of you, your brain is expecting visual stimulation. Colour and movement. And for the most part, it expects the visual to match the audio. If the lip sync is wrong, the brain doesn’t like it.

With television your visual centres demand movement. So certain kinds of static or slow moving programming don’t work that well. Parkinson for example. Television requires rapid cuts. Even the News now hardly shows ‘head of newsreader’. It cuts away to story and graphic over and over. Constantly capturing our attention with the next flicker of change. It’s packetised: eye grabs. We don’t really have programs any more, just non-stop cut-through.

When you listen to radio, your visual attention is not called for so you can move freely in space. Because you’re less constrained your imagination paints a picture that fills in the gaps. As a result, a well told story can be more powerful on radio than on television. When you watch television, the brain is largely occupied interpreting visual stimulus. When you listen to radio, the brain is more free to imagine.

So, given that radio is a different experience, how do you convey that? The current TV ad presents radio as an inferior version of TV. All the audio but nothing to look at. Playing radio sound grabs on television is like promoting a newspaper on television by showing photographs of news articles.

Three ideas:

1. Film people talking. Just because the audience can’t see the DJ while listening doesn’t mean you can’t show them the DJ talking to someone in a studio. It’s TV advertising. Give them a TV experience.

2. Black the screen while you run the audio. This will make people listen differently. Use a full 60 seconds telling a story. Or longer.

3. Interview people about what they’ve heard on radio. Talk about content. Radio programming is far more diverse than TV; that’s one of its strengths. ‘Did you hear that interview with the Jewish journalist who went around interviewing terrorist leaders?’ ‘Did you hear about the Canadian Government giving Australia the oldest document ever printed in Australia?’ ‘Did you hear about the garden of blue sticks?’ ‘Did you hear that program about the blogger who can’t stop criticising the ABC?’ No wait, that last one was the Internets.