Speaker: Devin Liddell, Director of Brand Strategy, Phinney Bischoff Design House

Positioning is the most important strategic brand asset for any organization. Typefaces and logos and such express brand strategies whereas position are ideas you want to own in the marketplace.  No student is ever going to pick you for your logo - they’re going to pick you for the ideas you own in the marketplace. 

It all comes down to differentiation - that’s what positioning is. 

Without position, this is no brand strategy. 

Examples: Volvo = Safety; Nike = Empowering; Walmart = Low-prices; Target = Cheap Chic

Whether or not you want to admit that you have a brand, you do have one. 

What about some universities?  He looked at the following: 

  • Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • Cal
  • Oregon
  • Oregon State
  • Stanford
  • UCLA
  • USC
  • U of Washington
  • Washington State

He would argue that none of these universities position themselves well - 10 universities, 5 core messages.

  1. The Leading… (this actually inspires negative enrollment responses from prospective students)
  2. We’re diverse
  3. Hands-on research
  4. Public service
  5. A new model

None of these messages differentiate them in their own conference, let along regionally or nationally.

When the messages are striped away from typefaces and logos, you see how meaningful or useless they really are: 

  • The leading public research universities
  • The world’s premiere public university
  • one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions
  • one of America’s finest universities

Etc, etc…

Position Criteria

  • singular - most organizations heap in way too much information. this is the toughest one. its hard to get a group of people to agree to one idea to “hang our hat on.”  (Obama = Change, McCain = Maverick)
  • differentiating - why spend money communicating if you can’t differentiate yourself?
  • compelling - there are lots of things that are differentiating that aren’t compelling
  • believable - some things are just overtly unbelievable
  • deliverable - can you do it right now? 
  • sustainable - can you do it tomorrow?

You don’t want to part of the chorus.  You want to be a rock star.

A truth about who you are is not the same as a truth about how you’re different.

The long road to the middle: where mediocrity lives.  This is the stuff that no one cares about. 

  • A trajectory of a positioning concept as it travels through organizational layers
  • Input and feedback is treated as something that must be accounted for within the concept itself (additive versus advisory).  The idea that you shouldn’t have any losers.
  • The concept becomes diluted internally

Why it happens

  • Complex group of stakeholders that will neer agree on anything
  • Extended periods of input and reflection stall alignment
  • A war of attrition that satisfies everyone and inpires no one

How do we change it?

Process Snapshot

  • agency selection, if applicable
  • project objectives/process structuring 
  • research and discovery
  • concept development 
  • concept selection/team alignment 

On Agency Selection:  the RFP process can be so overly-complex that you actually end up selecting the weakest agency out there.  Great partners are busy for a reason whereas not-so-great firms have more time on their hands

Strive for Transparency: Bring out into the open all the things that we pretend are invisible. Clarify participants (project leader, start-to-finish advisor, key touchpoint advisor, champion, kibosher) and tell each participant how they’re classified.

  • Why? Articulating project objectives
  • Where? Utilizing a neutral site
  • What? Identifying success criteria to foster a critique culture instead of a opinion culture
  • Eliminate all of the Big Reveals! Instead have tons of smaller reveals.
  • Develop agreement statements

Use Research to Set Context

  • One of the problems is that in general, higher ed is really insular…that makes research really important.
  • A competitive audit is an essential prerequisite to position development.
  • Interviews with students prospective students, once-prospective students, alumni, faculty, staff and administration illuminate defining attributes.
  • Research is possible on any budget
  • Research balances internal perspectives with external realities.
  • Position is the balance between what your audience wants, what you’re really good at and what your competitors are not already doing. 

Use a position contruct

  • One idea should not be able to overpower another idea just because its more powerfully communicated.  It should be based on the idea.

For < Target Audience > 
Brand is the < Category of Offering>
that < Key benefits >
Brand is chosen because < Key difference >

Make a definitive choice

  • In high school, doing what other people want is succumbing to peer pressure.  In the work place, doing it is being a team player
  • Avoid the El Camino effective; no Frankensteins
  • Resist the temptation to be comprehensive
  • If you’re not making hard choices, you’re not doing it right

5 Approaches Reiterated: 

  1. attract the strongest partners
  2. strive for transparency
  3. use research to set context
  4. employ a position construct
  5. make a definitive choice