Talk:Positioning (marketing)/Archives/2016

Inaccurate!

Who ever wrote this has not read any current books on the subject. It is not accurate or complete in content.

One of the issues that the article has been identified as having, is that it has no lead section (introduction, table of contents, summary). This problem reduces a reader’s ability to understand the points of the article which will be addressed or focussed on. As a result, the author has explored multiple avenues of what “Positioning” is within Marketing, vaguely approaching his interpretation of “Brand Positioning” and “Product Positioning” and even further outreached to “Brand Repositioning.” The second issue with the article is that there is a copious amount of opinion, coupled with an insufficient quantity of inline citation. This creates ambiguity and potentially unintentionally wrong information. To redress the first issue, I propose changing the article’s name from “Positioning (marketing)” to “Brand Position Communication” and removing all mention of Product – since the majority of the article focuses on the brand of a company.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.42.208.134 (talk) 21:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC) 

More complex than it needs to be!

This article is unfocussed and unnecessarily complex. Instead of taking a simple concept and trying to explain it clearly and simply, this article does it utmost to make everything sound much more complicated than it needs to be. Too much material, unfocused content and technical language serve to alienate readers rather then help them gain a general understanding. This article is much in need of simplification and clarification. Specific areas in need of rethinking follow:

Elaboration Likelihood Model

This model is used to understand how audiences process advertising and promotional messages. It is not directly related to positioning and any indirect links to this concept are not clearly explained. The sub-section uses overly technical explanations that would have little meaning for a reader without a background in marketing or advertising. This entire sub-section should be deleted without any loss of value?

Focus

Sections devoted to segmentation and targeting are getting too far away from the core issue, do not add to clarity and possibly add to complexity. There are good articles in Wikipedia on segmentation and target markets. If you must refer to these concepts, then surely a simple link to other pages would suffice? It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel every single time.

In addition, the emphasis on advertising is misplaced. The lead section states that positioning is achieved through advertising and this, unfortunately sets the tone for the entire article. But this is NOT correct. The entire marketing program, including product design, pricing, placement and promotion is designed to reinforce the brand or product position.

Perceptual Maps

To my mind, it is inconceivable that an article on positioning would not include some mention of perceptual maps or perceptual mapping techniques. This is a serious omission.

Examples

I agree with other comments on Talk that some examples would help enormously to clarify. I realise that it is difficult to get examples up in the current climate of 'no commercial content" and nothing "too promotional" - but even hypothetical examples might help.

Jargon/ Technical terms

I have to agree with previous comments on Talk Page (2010) that use of jargon is unhelpful. What is "affective fulfillment"? Either define unfamiliar terms or provide examples that help to clarify. Wherever possible, technical language or jargon should be avoided and replaced with simple terms. Try to remember that encyclopedias in general, and Wikipedia in particular are used by readers without subject matter expertise who are trying to get a general idea of what is involved in a particular topic area. Keep it simple!

Statistical procedures used to carry out positioning analysis

This is another serious omission, but I am planning to add a short section on this in the very near future. I have a good reference for this. Incidentally it is not necessary for me to write lengthy descriptions of each method, because Wikpedia already has articles devoted to these standard techniques. All that is needed is a short introductory paragraph followed by a list of the more commonly used techniques which include internal links to relevant WP pages. The interested reader can then follow the links if they want to learn in more detail. But for the average reader, a simple overview is all that is required.

References

Too much of the content on this page lacks references and of the references that are provided, too many are cited in the prose in a very long-winded manner. In-text citation enumerators would make the prose much more readable.

Copy edit

Entire page is much in need of a good copy edit, especially focussing on agreement of subject and verb, use of verb tenses, punctuation and general expression

Links

Useful links to relevant WP pages interspersed throughout the article could benefit many readers.

THE AIM OF GOOD WRITING SHOULD BE TO TO TAKE COMPLEX IDEAS AND EXPLAIN THEM SIMPLY. On this page, it looks like the aim is to take simple ideas and make them sound as complex as possible.

BronHiggs (talk) 23:44, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have some thoughts. Your comments come down to two key activities. One is editing what is already there: 1) copy edit, 2) address jargon, 3) simplification, and 4) add useful wikilinks. I also see the use of outlines, not sure why, maybe that's to your prose comment and "bolded" words, which shouldn't be in the body the article. Where you see content that should remain, but needs work, that looks like a great and useful effort. You should be able to jump in and get started, ensuring that you're in synch with the cited sources or add new sources when you add additional points. Are you interested in doing that yourself? I am betting that effort alone will make a huge difference!

Regarding content questions, the second area, it would be good to get some feedback, but it sounds like you have a plan. I see that there was a recent (in the scheme of things) removal of a lot of content. It looks to me like a lot of information was added to this article without someone watching to ensure that the entire article was succinct, focused, and well-written -- to your points as well.--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:53, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

BronHiggs Based upon the heading for this discussion, I thought you might have started with editing down the information and making what is here a bit clearer.

If the approach is to begin adding content before then, and not have it worked out too well when it's added, I suggest copying the article into a sandbox to work on, so that while it's a work in progress the interim stages won't be confusing to readers. I am happy to help you do that.. Then, you can make changes as you see fit, and don't have to worry about work-in-progress issues showing in the meantime. It's also less stressful.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Under construction

I added the {{Under construction}} tag so that if readers happen on this page, and see something like this version, with bright read error messages and a big gray box in the page, they'll know it's a work-in-progress.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:30, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Editing Interrupted

Recovered content reads as follows:

==Origins of the positioning concept==

Al Ries and Jack Trout are often credited with developing the concept of product or brand positioning. However, in their early writing, Ries and Trout show that the positioning concept was widely used in the advertising industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertising guru, David Ogilvy, believed that “the most important decision is how to position your product” and drilled his creative team with this idea. Both Ries and Trout would have been exposed to the positioning concept in their work as advertising executives. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the concept of positioning began to spread out of the advertising community and into the marketing community following the publication of a series of articles published by Ries and Trout in Industrial Marketing in 1969 and Advertising Age in 1972. These articles were to become highly influential. By the early 1970s, positioning became a popular word with marketers, especially those that were working in the area of advertising and promotion and in 1981 Ries and Trout published their classic book, Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind. (McGraw-Hill 1981) The concept enjoys ongoing currency among both advertisers and marketers as suggested by Maggard who notes that positioning provides planners with a valuable conceptual vehicle, which is effectively used to make various strategy techniques more meaningful and more productive.

References

BronHiggs (talk) 21:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand your point. Isn't this what's in the article now? Does this give greater credence to the notion of using a sandbox? Let me set one up for you. That way you don't have to worry about people coming in to fix issues (like the ref tags creating errors, etc.)--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

I started a sandbox page for you at User:BronHiggs/Positioning (marketing). Since you won't be in article space, you can make all the changes that you want and develop the article in peace.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:05, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Origins of the positioning concept

This section is a little confusing.

• Both Ries and Trout would have become familiar with the positioning concept in their work as advertising executives. - So, who did first develop the positioning concept? Or, what were the steps that led to the positioning concept (post World War II consumerism and product development, other)?
• This sentence seems out of place. I don't understand it being sandwiched between two sentence about Ries and Trout. Advertising guru, David Ogilvy,[disambiguation needed] believed that “the most important decision is how to position your product” and drilled his creative team with this idea. And, why?
• There's no explanation of how the positioning concept was developed and what that meant. I'm not sure how meaningful it is to say These articles were to become highly influential. [3] By the early 1970s, positioning became a popular word with marketers, especially those that were working in the area of advertising and promotion and in 1981 Ries and Trout published their classic book, Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind. (McGraw-Hill 1981) The concept enjoys ongoing currency among both advertisers and marketers as suggested by Maggard[4] who notes that positioning provides planners with a valuable conceptual vehicle, which is effectively used to make various strategy techniques more meaningful and more productive. without any context. Why did it become popular? why is it influential? why does it enjoy ongoing currency?

This entire section seems to have a lot of "telling" and not so much "showing".--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

BronHiggs

I think I gave you the wrong impression, my point wasn't that the section needed to go - just that some work needed to be done. I am guessing that my comments were not too clear, what I meant was get into some of the specific about origins of a positioning concept. Saying articles were to become influential - tells nothing about why they were important.

It's not so important if articles are influential, right? What's important was how did the concept of positioning in marketing affect the business, economic, marketing worlds? Did it seek to create demand for products, that would not have otherwise happened, or not to the same extent? Did it help to identify superior products? Telling us that it's a valuable concept, is in the papers, doesn't help people understand "why?"--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

See this edit - to my point about what was the origin?--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:20, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

CaroleHenson

Thank-you for taking the time to add the "active editing" tag and for your suggestions about using the Sandbox. Unfortunately I don't have the time to edit this article right now. I have managed to pick up two paying projects which will likely occupy me full-time until the end of the year. For this reason, I decided to remove recent edits that appear to be causing issues or confusion. At some later date, they can always be added back. I have retained a lot of material in my personal sandbox. You were right, I had conceived an overall plan for rectifying some of the more glaring problems with the article, and this included integrating recommendations made in prior comments on the Talk page. Most of the articles problem's have been there for at least 8 years, so leaving them for a few more months is not likely to cause much angst among users.

My overall aim was to retain pre-existing content as far as practical but, where necessary, to correct it, expand it, or give it a slightly different emphasis. For example, the existing article gave full credit to Ries and Trout for originating the idea. One commentator on the Talk page queried the accuracy of this and noted that the concept had been used in advertising a decade or two prior to Ries and Trout's publication. I did a bit of checking on this claim, and found that, indeed, there was sufficient evidence to support the view that positioning was used in the creative sector in the 1950s. I simply added some of this new evidence to the pre-existing material to reflect that. I also felt that the article already had too many repetitions of the same or similar definitions/explanations of the concept so that adding yet another one would not be helpful. Similarly, another commentator on the Talk page had expressly asked for an example or examples of the positioning concept. The article already included a general template for writing a positioning statement so I decided to add the Volvo example which is a practical application of that very same template. The Volvo positioning statement is verbatim from the original and is a relatively well-known example. I did not think that it would be appropriate for me to embellish it in any way. I also felt that it was important for users to read both the template (general) and the practical example (specific) together and for that reason, I made a conscious decision to keep them in the same section.

If these decisions mean that the combined/ integrated content doesn't have the right tone or adds a new layer of confusion, then, the affected content is probably best omitted altogether.

Regards

BronHiggs (talk) 01:19, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Okay, by the way, did you see what I added about use of positioning before Ries and Trout to get the section rolling?--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:50, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

CaroleHenson Yes, I did see it. Great, thanks. The comment on the Talk page about the need to acknowledge David Ogilvy's contribution to popularising the concept probably still needs to be addressed, but it will have to wait. I really need to keep my mind focussed on paid work, right now. Regards, Bronwyn BronHiggs (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

BronHiggs Since you don't have time to edit this article right now, I will do some copyediting. You had some really good point. Then, when you do have time, hopefully it will be easier to add the new content you'd like to add.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposed section

The following may be a useful addition to the article. If anyone sees this, please feel free to cut and paste it into the article. It is good to go - has links to relevant Wiki pages, has a list of solid references and the content has been checked for accuracy. (Most of the articles/books can be found in Pdf form on Google Scholar and the books in Google Books.

 == Algorithms Used In Positioning Analysis ==

The following statistical procedures have been found to be useful in carrying out positioning analysis:

• Cluster analysis and Correspondence Analysis

• Conjoint Analysis

• Multidimensional scaling especially non-metric scaling (NMS)

• Multivariate analysis

• Neural Networks

References

BronHiggs (talk) 07:11, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Uncited content

The following uncited content was in the "definition" section - but seems to get deeper into the process:

It will happen whether or not a company's management is proactive, reactive or passive about the ongoing process of evolving a position. But a company can positively influence the perceptions through enlightened strategic actions.

A company, a product or a brand must have positioning concept in order to survive in the competitive marketplace. Many individuals confuse a "core idea concept" with a positioning concept. A core idea concept simply describes the product or service. Its purpose is merely to determine whether the idea has any interest to the end buyer. In contrast, a "positioning concept" attempts to sell the benefits of the product or service to a potential buyer. The positioning concepts focus on the rational or emotional benefits that buyer will receive or feel by using the product/service. A successful positioning concept must be developed and qualified before a "positioning statement" can be created. The positioning concept is shared with the target audience for feedback and optimization; the positioning statement is a business person's articulation of the target audience qualified idea that would be used to develop a creative brief for an agency to develop advertising or a communications strategy.

Where is the best place for this to go? Are there sources for this content?-- CaroleHenson (talk) 20:31, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

CaroleHenson To answer your question, the best place for this content to go is the 'waste paper bin'. It is total gibberish! It totally fails to demonstrate even the most basic grasp of the positioning concept and would be of little assistance to users seeking a clear and concise explanation of the concept and how it is used in practice. In fact, this content is potentially misleading with its focus on advertising, marketing communications and selling which is not really what positioning is about. In addition, I have never heard of the 'core idea concept' and have never seen it mentioned in any of the standard marketing textbooks - and I am very familiar with more than 20 of the main titles. Nor, would I expect to see this term used in a published work because it is tautological - idea and concept mean the same thing - so we would not really expect to see them together in a single descriptor in any serious work. I suspect that the 'core idea concept' may be confusing advertising's famous 'big concept' advertisement or 'big idea' advertisement (which refers to one single, stand-out message in an advertising execution) with the 'core idea concept' - but really we will never know because of the lack of references and the perfunctory nature of the explanation. As you may be aware there's very little activity on this talk page - people were saying that this page was rubbish 7 years ago - and not much has changed since then. So I thought that I should answer your question lest it languish on the talk page for another decade or so without a response.

BronHiggs (talk) 11:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok, BronHiggs, good feedback. I see that you continue to feel you've had a bad time on the Wikipedia, and I saw your comments below. I have other things I prefer to work on, and there are plenty of people that can weigh in on marketing issues, so I will wish you "happy editing!"--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)