Positioning is the activity of comparing something new and unknown with something old and familiar.
We have several NEW concepts being introduced all at one time.
There may or may not be an advice that this is unwise -- we are doing it in expectation that ALL of the NEW stuff, each component, makes the other components more acceptable.
On this page are all the items which are either NEW or are being treated in a new way and therefore need to be positioned with something familiar.
First, the word "Ayurceutical" should be positioned as better than "pharmaceutical," "nutraceutical" but similar in the concept of providing a "remedy" for "health" even though "health" is differently defined:
Pharmaceutical defines health as something which is achieved by giving an FDA-approved "drug" to cure or prevent a disease or to affect the function or structure of the body. The concern here is for "cure" of the disease of a small part of the body, even some special type of cell. While "pharmaceutical" will play lip-service to "mind and spirit" there is really no room for these concepts within the technology of pharmaceuticals.
Nutraceutical defines health as something which is achieved by feeding a FOOD, not generally in the form in which it grows, but in some form that allows for extraction, concentration, alteration, even manipulation of tiny items like molecules. Nutraceutical products emphasize, just as do pharmaceuticals, the prevention or treatment of a disease, or the effect on structure or function of the body by using FOOD, not drugs. A nutraceutical generally includes considerable research (comparable, but much much less than the research necessary to get a drug FDA-approved) on how some special form of the food contributes to the body's ability to heal itself. A nutraceutical must claim that the body heals itself, with proper food, since only a "drug" can heal the body without the help of the body.
Ayurceutical defines health in terms of the "whole person" and not a part of him. The "Ayur" part of this word comes from "Ayurvedic" which is the dominant form of "health treatment" in most of Asia. While the Ayurvedic approach involves both nutrients (components of food) it also includes methods of application and behavior. Ayurceutical also involves some small part of this larger coverage by Ayurvedic approaches. Just as the root word, "ceutical" means "remedy" and implies a "substance" that brings about a remedy, the Ayurceutical product is different from a pure Ayurvedic approach mainly in that any "methods of delivery" and behavior are NOT drawn from the Ayurveda (books) but rather from the research (the need for which is common also to pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals) on methods of application and types of behavior that affect health.
Health Food Store is typically a retail outlet that stocks inventory and deals with consumers. Health Food stores generally purchase supplements and other health remedies at one price and sell at a higher price -- the difference being their profit margin. When and as most health food stores compete with other outlets, including discount houses and web sites, it is common to find price discounting in any of these outlets. While the consumer often wants "health information" and often gets it at a health food store, generally the only source of exchange for that information is when the consumer makes a purchase at that store. The consumer who seeks health advice would normally NOT go to a discount store. He might go to a web site, simply depending on whether that web site included health information.
Consignment Shipment is relatively rare in the health food store experience. There are two key characteristics of a consignment sale or a consignment shipment. Ownership of the goods does NOT pass to the person who takes over physical possession. Payment for these goods is not expected in advance, or at any time until the goods are sold. Thus legal ownership stays with the shipper (Vibrant Life) and it is within the law for the owner to set the price and terms of sale to the consumer. It would be a violation of the consignment agreement, presumably, for the recipient to sell the goods at a price different than allowed for in that agreement. It is illegal for a supplier to SELL a product to a health food store and also try to get the health food store to agree to a "price-fixing" arrangement. It is not illegal for an owner of goods (VL) to ship goods which it continues to own, and have a retail store sell those goods as an agent for the owner. As "agent" the store operates according to an agency agreement. Vibrant Life has decided that "price competition" among retail outlets leads to discounting and a cheapening of the type of health information which so many consumers go to the store to obtain. Vibrant Life has introduced this method of marketing so that stores will compete, instead, on the basis of the quality of their service, including the quality of the health advice they give.
Exclusive Agency is the term that allows health food stores to feel comfortable that there will not be another store within some identified area to which Vibrant Life will ship goods. (There is a related part of the agency agreement that Vibrant Life will ONLY ship its goods to someone who becomes an "exclusive agent," agrees to a consignment shipping concept and has also included his legal agreement to not sell at any price other than what Vibrant Life sets. Vibrant Life, itself, passes on to its exclusive agents the right to sell at the same prices as are regularly posted on the sales pages of the Vibrant Life web sites.
Health Training is common amongst health food store management and staff. There is a large number of available sources for such training. In fact, Vibrant Life is not particularly familiar with the range of such choices. However, Vibrant Life DOES offer electronic, interactive educational courses on health subjects and, uniquely, ties the commissions paid on consignment sales to the number of such courses taken and passed by health food store management, staff and even the public they contact. This is all in the way of the exclusive agency agreement including some features that lead to a better educated health food store staff -- so that the "competition" they offer in their areas is "better information" rather than "better prices." The concept that the number of THEIR customers (or contacts) who take these courses all contributes to a better educated public -- a public who achieves better health because of the knowledge they gain and the better health choices they make.
Web Site is a common feature for many retail stores -- sometimes even published by one or more their suppliers who offer such. Vibrant Life has some mechanically unique methods of creating web sites, quickly, and with custom features, that will allow any health food store which becomes an exclusive agent for Vibrant Life products to have that web site.
Ayurcream™ is one of the first products created within the philosophical concept of "Ayurceutical" products. As such much of the positioning for this product would be similar to that for the term "Ayurceutical." However, it is more specifically true that Ayurcream is "food for the skin" that neither treats a skin disease or alters appearance. Rather the central positioning here must be that Ayurcream is a FOOD which nourishes the body in such a way that the body can then produce and maintain a healthy skin. There should be no hint of claim that Ayurcream does anything other than nourish the body with foods that have been found to often be deficient and in need of supplementation.
Transdermal is a reasonably well known term for a substance which easily passes through skin layers into the body and which can "carry" other substances with it as it passes through. There are thousands of US Patents on substances which can be called "transdermal." This is not a new term. The substance, "Methyl Sulfonyl Methane" (MSM) is a "transdermal substance" and does act to carry other substances through the skin. Thus if there found to be some food (particularly in some concentrated form) that helps the body improve the skin, the DELIVERY of that food is often more effective if delivered through the skin rather than through the mouth. Ayurcream is an "MSM cream" with added Ayurvedic herbs and other components based on knowledge of homeopathy and Ayurveda.
Sulfur is a nutrient which has been well proven, but not necessarily well publicized, as one of the primary nutrients feeding skin, fingernails and hair. The usual proof of this relates to the sheep because the wool of a sheep is very highly commercialized and "good wool" and "poor wool" are classifications of considerable economic importance. It would seem natural that a substance which improves the quality of wool (the hair of a sheep) would likely also improve the quality and health of human hair. Research that shows this linkage is important, but most of the research on sheep wool and sheep nutrition can be used to position "organic sulfur" as one of the most important nutrients for hair. The central ingredient in Ayurcream is, in fact "Methyl Sulfonyl Methane, MSM, "organic sulfur." In many different studies of the surface parts of the body (the skin, fingernails and hair) the concentration of sulfur is markedly high.
India is the source for these Ayurceutical products and certainly the source for Ayurcream. India has become, without much publicity, one of the largest producers of pharmaceuticals sold in the United States. India, of course, is the original source for the Ayurvedic health approaches that cover many billions of earth's population now.
Allopathy is the conventional method of treatment in the Western World and stands in stark contrast to Ayurceutical approaches. Allopathy is a drug-oriented approach that denies any role to be played by the mind and spirit relative to the health of the body. When the allopaths worry about the effect of the mind, they have turned to psychiatry which, still, ignores the mind and treats the body with psychiatric drugs which are so harmful to health that Vibrant Life has a firm policy of refusing to sell any of its products to any person taking a psychiatric drug. In the experience of Vibrant Life such people are not likely to be helped by the products offered by Vibrant Life.
Dr. Raghaven is the brilliant scientist who has developed and is developing the Ayurceutical products being introduced and marketed by Vibrant Life. Dr. Raghaven is a "Doctor of Homeopathy" and a "Doctor of Ayurvedic." He is also the owner of the factory that produces MSM and Ayurcream. He is one of those rare individuals who reads Sanskrit -- the original language of the "Veda" --- the original source of the "Ayurveda." The Veda is well accepted in Asia as a body of information that was first put in written form some 10,000 years ago -- certainly the oldest known form of written knowledge. The "Ayur Veda" is that body of information, likewise originally in Sanskrit, with the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of helping people achieve health, within any economic factors that may have made plentiful food easy or hard to obtain.
Homeopathy is a reasonably well known term in Western experience, but the "-ceutical" approach to this is to emphasize the methods of extraction of the original herbs and food used to become components of Ayurceutical products.
Further research may be needed to show the nutrient needs for finger nails and skin, but as that research is done and published it will be easier and easier to position Ayurcream as a vital element of nourishment for skin.
All these areas outlined in yellow represent different ways that Ayurcream (and other products) should be marketed and promoted.
and Ayurcream. He is one of those rare individuals who reads Sanskrit -- the original language of the "Veda" --- the original source of the "Ayurveda." The Veda is well accepted in Asia as a body of information that was first put in written form some 10,000 years ago -- certainly the oldest known form of written knowledge. The "Ayur Veda" is that body of information, likewise originally in Sanskrit, with the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of helping people achieve health, within any economic factors that may have made plentiful food easy or hard to obtain.