Marketing Excellence
Innovation is the lifeblood of a growing company. However, too many companies define innovation so narrowly that the only new products they launch are line extensions with a different size, flavor, color, etc. True innovation requires:
- a broader outlook of the market;
- deeper insights into underserved and unmet needs generated from customer segment-level observations and interactions; and
- a process and structure to prioritize the opportunities.
Unlocking strategic insights frequently involves understanding customers. But customers are not all the same. Whether we are conducting a strategic plan for a major packaged goods firm or a marketing effectiveness project for a pharmaceutical company, we often initiate the work with a segmentation exercise to understand the relevant customer groups and their needs. Our goal is to identify those factors that truly drive and differentiate customers' current and future behavior, and to use these to capture greater market share.
Positioning: The basis from which all marketing communications should emanate; it is very simply the process of identifying, communicating, and delivering a meaningful competitive advantage. Our approach is based on a simple construct: Customer motivations of the attractive segments drive our focus. Relative competitive performance drives our strategies and resource allocation.
Focus: We focus brand attention and efforts on important attributes and benefits. We identify the true drivers – the most important product and service variables – that define the attitudes and behavior of the most attractive customer segments.
Competitive performance: Our strategies are then built around the customer segments and perceptions of a brand's relative competitive performance on those key drivers.
- Identify fundamental product and service variables offered by the competitive set of products (cost-of-entry benefits)
- Identify key weaknesses that must be fixed – where competitors are outperforming. Identify key strengths that represent an immediate positioning opportunity.
- Identify major gaps in the marketplace – opportunities to leapfrog the competition.
Message development: Trigger statements and benefit laddering techniques that complete the positioning exercise as we discern the appropriate communications and higher order benefits that customers seek. The compilation of these ingredients leads to development of a positioning statement from which all brand activities should emanate.