Positioning: Still an Important Subject, Albeit Frequently Overlooked
I just came across an amusing reminder on the subject of market positioning in cleantech. We all remember the notion of positioning from its emergence in the 1970s. In brief, it means communicating a new idea via a comparison to something that is already well-established and much-loved in the customer’s mind.
A good example in today’s world might be the energy beverage “Rockstar.” Its target audience loves rock stars; young people aspire to party like them, travel like them, have sex like them, drive fast cars like them, and just exude a kind of high-frequency “zap.”
A young person might be wondering: Where does all that energy come from that these rock stars carry around with them? Easy! It must derive from this beverage that they apparently all consume—it’s named especially for them! Being like a rock star means drinking chemicals that enable you to perform like one.
So is this reasoning on the customer’s part a bit specious? Sure, but that’s hardly relevant. At least it’s reasoning of some sort.
Now take the fellow who wants me to help him raise a couple of million dollars to build a power plant discussed below, and try to spot the issue:
Fellow: Do you think you can help promote my idea to investors?
Craig: Not really, to be honest. Put yourself in my position. What happens when I tell someone I think they should invest in an “Induction Energy Feed Water Re-Heat Steam Waste Heat Recovery Regenerative Steam Cycle Electric Power – Evaporative Fresh Water Production CoGen Facility?” I don’t think they’re going to be too turned on, and some of them are going to laugh in my face. You need to hire me to figure out how to explain this to people. I’ll be happy to help; I’m actually very good at this; you could say that when it comes to market positioning, I’m a virtual rock star.
I hope readers will contact me if they:
• Have a business concept that needs a story built around it (an understandable and appealing story) or
• Need help in communicating that story to any of a variety of constituencies: prospective investors, business partners, journalists, potential mega-customers, government officials domestically and internationally, etc.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Maybe you don’t have to invoke something else to show the usefulness of your product.
The names I chose for proposed transportation systems reflect what they do in three syllables each. Both use Danby & Powell superconducting magnetic-levitation (MagLev) rail.
The passenger service, allowing members of the public to put their own cars on the MagLev rail, is “LeviCar”, which could be short for “Levitating Car’, but is also a take-off on my own last name. BTW, my middle name has been Zev since birth 66 years ago — what a coincidence!
The freight service, I call “RoboTrail” (= Robot Rail), which, when you say it, sounds deep and strong. You can read all about these, and more, at http://www.LeviCar.com
This is an interesting post. Like many you write the thoughts could be developed in many directions. It sounds like the “fellow” is referring to something along the lines of Magnitohydrodynamics. I would be curious about the twist or difference. Arpa or Darpa infested a pile of cash into this process to try and make it work more efficiently. Presently it is used in some power plants for energy recovery.
Aside from the process, the rhetoric of “positioning” is no more than a re-branding of the logical fallacy of “the Argument of Authority.” It is funny how so many advertising techniques use logical fallacies. I suppose the study is so valid because it points out our human weaknesses. We study the science and ignore the fallacies to our personal disadvantage. Science is considered practical while logic (and fallacies) are considered esoteric liberal arts with no immediate value. Such is our educational system which to a large measure has prepared our population to be manipulated by those who do study the “esoteric.”
The other aspects you point out is the human tendency to reach for the simplest answer (and its corollary to avoid what is complex.) It is even made into a “law” the “law of Parsimony” or Occam’s Razor: http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2295/when-given-limited-information-is-the-simplest-solution-that-matches-that-infor
There are many examples of the technique you discuss, Craig, and it’s valuable.
Another important aspect is simplicity in communication, as Breath on the Wind notes above.
Speaking of (and relating simplicity back to rock stars), I was at a U@ concert years ago and in the middle of a jam – as he sometimes does – the lead singer of the band, Bono, asked how many guitarists there were in the audience, and then who among them would like to come up and play with the band.
Hundreds and then dozens of hands went up and a young man was selected. He mounted the stage and was given an instrument. The engineers kept his volume down until they could tell if he was any good, and he was, so they turned him up and this guy played with U2 for about five minutes.
They ended the song, and Bono said, “You’re pretty good! You in a band?”
The guy calls back, “Yeah” and Bono asks the name of the band.
“Syncopated Entropy” came the response.
Bono shook his head and smiled down, “No, no, man – two or three syllables at the most – you know, like U2!”
It was an important lesson.
That’s a really cool story.