Although Madison Avenue has used "POSITIONING" for some years, it has not fully understood the actual philosophical background that makes "POSITIONING" work.

There is an excellent booklet called: "The Positioning Era" put out by Ries Cappiello Colwell, Inc., 1212 AVenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, which has been reprinted and issued as HCO PL 13 Sept. 88R, Marketing Series 24, THE POSITIONING ERA. It is an excellent booklet. It does not, however, give the philosophical background which, probably, is not generally known. Probably it was never discovered. I had to work it out myself.

Buckminster Fuller, an engineer and architect of some renown, says that it is a two-terminal universe In other words, the universe is built by twos.

In electricity you have heard of two "poles" -- the positive and the negative. You only get movement or generated energy in the presence of two poles. That is the principle of the electric motor, why current flows from one point to another point and so forth. There are four possible arrangements of these two poles: they are positive-negative, positive-positive, negative-negative and negative-positive.

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Fast communication is most easily done by comparisons. When one asks, "What is the book like?" he really is not trying to get you to describe the book. He means that he wants some comparison. He will be happiest with the answer if he is told that it is like another book with which he is familiar. It would take you a lot longer and involve you in a lot more arguments if you just tried to describe the book to him instead of comparing.

"What does it taste like?" is satisfactorily answered, "Like candy." That, if it has some shadow of truth and accuracy, is a perfectly satisfactory answer to the other person.

So we get a law which is this:

THE UNFAMILIAR IS RAPIDLY INTRODUCED OR COMMUNICATED BY COMPARING IT TO A FAMILIAR.

Joe knows nothing about practice boxing gloves and there are none there to show him and he will be fairly satisfied if he is given a familiar object, pillows, to compare them to.

Thus, one can achieve a very rapid communication by observing the following law:

ONE CAN ACHIEVE THE APPARENCY OF FAMILIARITY, EVEN WHEN THE PERSON HE IS COMMUNICATING TO HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJERCT OF COMMUNICATION, WHEN HE ASSOCIATES IT IN THE MIND OF THE OTHER WITH SOMETHING WITH WHICH THE OTHER IS FAMIIAR.

Positioning takes advantage of a fact that one can compare the thing he is trying to get the other person to understand with desirable or undesirable objects. Desirable objects are now more commonly used in advertising. Undesirable objects are more commonly used in propaganda. By comparing the unfamiliar thing or the thing he wants to sell to another desirable object or by comparing something he wants people to detest to an undesirable thing, he can achieve a rapid communication an comparison.

(Source HCO PL 30 Jan 1979)

 

Clearly "Ayurcream" introduces a word that has been virtually never used. Thus it is unfamiliar to the broad public. It may be guessed at in Asia, but will be a complete mystery in the Western World. ("Ayurvedic" is a well known term in India, certainly, but it is not immediately clear that the prefix "Ayur" means life or more specifically, health, while "-vedic" refers to "book" or "teachings."

Positioning is vital to the success of marketing any product where the name given to it is actually a word never heard of.

"Ivory" soap is a good example of a name that most people would understand easily. When Ivory Soap was first introduced many years ago, Proctor and Gamble had a real positioning problem. They came up with one of the most brilliant ways to differentiate their soap from all others by saying, "It floats!" That feature, of course, had to be "built into the soap" and had nothing to do with its value as a cleaning product -- but it allowed "positioning" that would clearly make it the most well-known name of soap in the world.

If we could, for instance, create into Ayurcream a mechanical feature such as, "It bubbles gently on your skin for seven minutes!" or some such, that feature could be used to position Ayurcream as at least different, and if well done, better, than other creams.

The marketing people are often demanding of the production people that they "build in" some aspect of the product that will make it different, even if not usefully different, JUST so they can use that difference as a POSITIONING point. The production people who understand marketing will, themselves, dream up features they can build into the product to make marketing easier.

"Ayurcream" uses a term that practically no person will understand.

If you say, "Ayurcream makes your skin like a baby's skin." you are using "positioning. But you would also be using a truly worn-out comparison -- worn-out means no longer useful. Coming up with FRESH comparisons is what drives Madison Avenue and makes SOME artists wealthy.

People who first see "Ayurcream" will have some attraction to it because people love "mysteries." But when it is mysterious it must then quickly be made known or the next reaction takes place:

It is not only that they don't understand this term, it is also a law that as soon as they sense that a unknown word is being used they will have a tendency to shun that word and that product.

Such as:

This new type of noodle is thick as zilly and as good as smarrq.

There is, thus, a peculiar demand on anyone using an unknown word in marketing. Since it is generally much easier to get a trademark on an unknown word ("Ayurcream") than a familiar word, the ease of getting the trademark is counter-balanced by the great need to spend ink, paper and money to present that word -- the presentation will be far faster and more effective if the full technology of "positioning" is known and practiced.

There is very much more to this -- many pages written by Mr. Hubbard.

Positioning can be done by comparing some word with another word, but the real power of positioning comes from comparing the unfamiliar with the image of an object that is very familiar or gives an obvious impression.

He is hard to get to know!
He is like a cute puppy!
Her dance style is a bit sluggish!
Your blood will flow easily and abundantly.
This cream has an ancient heritage from India.
This new cream creates the LIFE of a child in your skin!