Brand Shorthand

Perception, Exclusivity ... and Focus

• Mark Vandegrift and Lorraine Kessler • Season 1 • Episode 4

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What's on Lorraine's mind? Some messed-up advertising campaigns, plus a name change for the Wienermobile. Then Mark and Lorraine dive into one of Trout and Ries' all-time best books, the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and cover three laws they deem most fundamental to positioning strategy: the Law of Perception, the Law of Exclusivity, and the Law of Focus. Learn why marketers risk everything when they violate these laws. 

 

If you dig all things marketing, advertising, and positioning, spend 30-ish with Mark and Lorraine.

[opening music]


Mark Vandegrift:

Welcome to the latest episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift and with me is your favorite positionist, Lorraine Kessler. Lorraine, what's on your mind today?


Lorraine Kessler:

Well, other than my dog panting at my leg right now. So I hope that doesn't, really it is a dog.


You know, Mark, we've been kind of stuck in this rut with these, these beer stuff. Uh, but, uh, the Bud Light, the Miller Light, um, reboot, apologetics that they went back to. But I'd like to point out a difference between two brands that, you know, took a step in cultural wars, um, and those two brands are Nike and Bud Light. And what's the difference here? Why did one work and why did the other not? So when you take a look at Nike's Colin Kaepernick, whatever you think about him, right? You're probably not Nike's core customer, if you don't think the way they did about that. So I would say Nike took a foray to cultivate its core audience. They understood who their core audience was, as you mentioned before, they were willing to sacrifice those who wouldn't share that kind of view or values.


And this is the audience they made. They put their flag in the sand that this is the audience they most wanted to cultivate and they did so very successfully. Bud Light on the other hand is trying to cultivate everybody and everyone and had a total miscalculation of who their core customer is and moreover who it could be that would make them successful and sustain the business. So they threw over their core customer to go after something like 0.06% of the population. 


So really, there's a huge difference here in a brand that really has a clear understanding for its values and its core customer and a brand that was just pandering. And years ago, Ariana Huffington coined this phrase, which I haven't heard in the last five years, and probably because no one's doing this, but her phrase was, authenticity is the new black, right? I don't see authenticity in these brands as they swing and sway and go from one end to the other. And the problem is that customers have good sniffers, and they can smell this disingenuousness. They can smell this right away. But I would say Nike had that at its core. It was acting more from an established value base. So that's why it worked for them. The other thing that's on my mind, and it's just because I love Hellman's mayonnaise and there is no other mayonnaise, right? They actually say Hellman's Real Mayonnaise. Is that West of the Rockies, this iconic brand is called Best Foods mayonnaise. If you look at the jar, you look at the label, you might want to even post that up, Hellman's and Best Foods mayonnaise. Because people will say it is the same mayonnaise. They're both from Unilever, but this goes back to 1932 when somebody bought the New York brand, I think, Hellman's, and then took it west of the Rockies. I don't know. It just goes back to 1932. And the thing is, rip the band aid off already. It should all be Hellman's. I mean, this makes no economic sense to me to have two brand names plus best foods, mayonnaise is, I mean, I don't know how you get more generic than that.


Mark Vandegrift:

Yeah, well, I think going to the beer commercials, it's at some level, I guess, innately built into me, not just as a marketer, but just as a human being… just sell me your product. I mean, we all don't love advertising, but at the end of the day, that's what moves product. I guess that's where it feels that we're crossing a line where I'm being preached at instead of just sold to. And, you know, I wasn't a Nike devotee, but I bought their products. If that was what I happened to like at the time. Um, I'm not a beer drinker, so I, you know, Bud Light's not my thing or nor is Miller Lite. But at the end of the day, so many brands now think that they need to preach to their audience rather than just sell their basic product. And I guess that's what. a lot of people are recoiling about. Maybe Colin Kaepernick, maybe that was good, wasn't good, you know, but now we fast forwarded six, seven years. And I think that Bud Light just happened to be in the crosshairs of a time where people are tired of being preached to and having values shoved down their throat that aren't innate into their what their makeup is. 


So there's a lot of things. I mean, there's probably some psychologists out there that's having field day with all of this. We're just marketers and we want to talk about good advertising. Did you hear that the Wiener Mobile is changing to the Frank Mobile?


Lorraine Kessler:

No.


Mark Vandegrift:

I didn’t know if you heard about that or not?


Lorraine Kessler:

No, I didn’t.


Mark Vandegrift:

Well, they say it because they want to go to this healthier approach because processed foods have gone down in terms of sales as people are more aware of healthiness. And so they want to call attention to the better ingredients in their latest products, which they did actually change the formula for their franks. But I don't know. An iconic... brand symbol of the Wienermobile is something that I don't know that you mess around.


Lorraine Kessler:

So how do you work Frank into their famous slogan, singing, jingle? I want to be an Oscar Mayer Frank. I mean, I had a whole different thought as to why they changed from wiener.


Mark Vandegrift:

[Laughs] I know you did.


Lorraine Kessler:

I hadn't heard that. That's pretty funny, but I would I think it might be good to put the jingle and have people replay it in their head. “All I want to is an Oscar Mayer … frank?!?”


[Oscar Mayer jingle.]


[Laughter] 


Mark Vandegrift:

Yeah, it doesn't work. Well, Lorraine, let's get to our topic of the day. There's a great book that we reference constantly in our business. It's one of Trout and Reese's wonderful books originally published in 1993. And then they updated it in 2002. It's called the “22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.” And just to give you a quick summary, our audience, it's an exposition on the many principles essential for effective brand marketing. We in our AD process actually hone those down to 12 rules because there was a lot of redundancy in the 22 immutable laws, but it's still worth reading. And we've picked three of those to discuss today with Lorraine. But first, let's share the 22 laws from the book. For those on audio only, I'll read the slide. So these are the different laws. There's the law of leadership, the law of category, the law of the mind, perception, focus, exclusivity, the ladder, duality, number nine, the opposite, division, perspective, line extension, sacrifice, attributes, candor, singularity, unpredictability, success, failure, hype, and the last two are, acceleration and resources. So if you need to know the details of all that, grab the book. It's available on Amazon. They all make the book worth the read, but we've again just picked three to chat about today and those are the law of perception, which is perception is reality, the law of exclusivity, which means positioning is differentiation, and the law of focus, which to me, I always want to say this to business owners first: “quit being ADHD!” The law of focus is really important.  With that, let's start with the first. I've talked enough here, Lorraine. You go ahead and run with the law of perception.


Lorraine Kessler:

Well, this is the first of all the laws because people do not understand clients if they are resistant to this idea, good luck, right? And marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products. This is where marketing battles are fought, right? [points to the mind] In the gray matter. And it's a very tricky terrain. You have to understand some of the mind rules. Minds... are limited. It's a very limited container. We don't take in massive amounts of information. There's actually a part of the brain called the Broca that defends against things you've seen before. This is why if you walked into church on Sunday and saw a sign about the new worship times, you won't see it the next three times you walk in church. It'd just be kind of the Broca says, you've seen that, you've digested it, move on. So you have to understand that there is no objective reality. There are no facts. It is cliche, but it's true: perception is the only reality. 


So how I perceive, you know, we have a great test of this, the idea that we taste images, we don't taste products. And that's the Pepsi Coke challenge from many years ago. That taste test proved that people, even Coke drinkers, preferred the taste of Pepsi over Coca-Cola in a blind taste test. But what did they do in the store when they went and went to buy? Did they buy Pepsi? No, they continued to buy Coke. And why? It just boggles us if we don't understand that we taste images. We're not really tasting the ingredients. We taste what we believe about that product, what it says about us. And in the modern age, there's become much more identification, self-identification with products. 


That's why people walk around with Starbucks cups. They want people to know they have good taste in coffee. So we do taste images. And it isn't a world where the better product wins. The better perception wins. So businesses would be well advised, in my opinion, to pay attention to the quality of their image. as much, if not more so than the quality of their product. 


Often the image is what I find lags behind the quality of the product. They're just not attending to that as well. And this reminds me of a story my son, right when he graduated from Ohio State University, took a job with BMW down in Columbus. And this was their customer complaint line. And he jokingly told me, he says, “Mom, we get so many phone calls and complaints about the windows not going down or getting stuck and no one really cares.” He goes, “all they care about is how the car drives, the ultimate, you know, drivability of the BMW, the way the car performs, the feeling and all.” And he said, they are, he goes, “because we send these through and it's just like, you know, okay.” I thought that was really maybe positioning to a fault, but I thought that was a really interesting antidote.


Mark Vandegrift:

Yeah. One that comes to mind, and I think this is an additional point that you're making with perception, is VHS and beta back in the day. Anybody that had a beta said this is far superior in terms of the technology and the quality, but which one won out? And I think that goes to show that marketing creates that perception. And that's kind of the point of the law of perception is you are literally seeding perceptions in the mind, regardless of what truth really is. Do you remember those days when no one knows what a VHS is anymore?


Lorraine Kessler:

I do.


Mark Vandegrift:

But I remember that day.


Lorraine Kessler:

Well, and I also, you know, in the old days, I remember the big PC Apple battle to battle perceptions. Apple was considered not to be a business tool. It was for artists and designers who want to make pretty pictures. And the business owners thought of it as not a work tool. Right? So that evolved to where we are today, where Apple definitely is the creator maker tool, but more of us see ourselves as creator makers, or at least want to.


Mark Vandegrift:

I think this goes back to when you think about the law of perception too, we try to convince clients, sometimes with success, sometimes not, that a perceived lack of quality in their product is not something necessarily to worry about. They do need to maybe fix those things they can fix. But the challenge is when they think that marketing is a comparison list going down and saying, I'm better here, they're better here, I'm better here, I'm better here, they're better here. Explain why that really is not the way that marketing works and how that aligns with the law of perception.


Lorraine Kessler:

Well, what you're talking about is comparative advertising versus differentiation. By differentiating a brand, you set up different criteria by which your brand is to be judged, completely different from your competitor's product, where if you're doing comparative, what you've done is copied. You tried to say being better is better, not being different is better. And you've copied your competitor. And now you want the consumer to go point by point and compare on features and benefits. Well, good luck. You know, who buys a cell phone today based on features and benefits? Who looks at that long list?


Mark Vandegrift:

Right.


Lorraine Kessler:

Right. They say, no, I want an Apple and why don't I want it? I want the new Samsung and why don't I want that? I want the Google. What is that? The Galaxy now? And they have a reason for it. And that's it. That's as deep as they go. So this is why comparative advertising versus differentiation is not really as an effective approach.


Mark Vandegrift:

Yeah, and I like what you say there. I want to highlight it for our listeners. The perception is created by how we want our target audience to think. So in other words, we're almost creating a different reality by stating the rules against which we will be perceived. And



Lorraine Kessler:

In doing a pre-shift discovery is one of the things we stress with clients is how can we create our own sandbox, right? So when you do that, you're setting up all new criteria and you're saying to that target customer, this criteria trumps everything else that the competition has to offer.


Mark Vandegrift:

So that naturally then goes into the law of exclusivity, which is the second law that we wanted to talk about. And we basically term it, positioning is differentiation. And you just touched on that.


This is probably the hardest concept for marketers because when new clients come in, we hear, well, this is what our competition is doing, or this is what our competition is saying. And it says, it goes to what you were saying, which is they want to copycat the competition. To me, that's insanity. Or actually, I might want to call it laziness. And not to offend, but it's laziness in the sense that it is really hard to invent and innovate, especially in marketing. But it's okay to steal ideas, but you only steal the good ones, right? And then make them your own. 


For example, you and I agree, everyone here agrees, we didn't invent positioning. But we certainly made it our own. You were a huge part of that, developing our discipline. Dick, of course, all over that, all a part of that. And we invented a practice for which that made us known as the nation's leading positioning ad agency and for Jack Trout to say, these guys get it better than anyone. Well, he wasn't upset that we took the idea and ran with it. 


Similarly, I think in marketing, if we can get marketers that we work with to get off the lazy train and get into the innovation train. Lorraine, tell us why this is so critical.


Lorraine Kessler:

This is a simple principle that says two brands can't own the same idea in the mind unless they're in different categories. So I'll give you an example. The best example I can come with, top of mind, is here's an attribute, kills germs. So who does that idea fit? If I say, what brand do you associate with kills germs? And we've done this in appreciative discoveries many times. The likely responses are Lysol, right? Does kill germs. And Listerine. Right? Not in the same category, so not confusing. Both can own that idea. 


You wouldn't want to wash your toilet with Listerine, and I don't think you want to use Lysol as your mouthwash. So, but they can do that. They can kill germs. Another one that came on the scene a little later is Purell. Kills germs on skin. So, they also own the idea because Listerine isn't something you put on your hands, neither is Lysol. So as long as they're in different categories, you can own the same idea, but not in the same category. That's really key. 


Now, if you're in the same category, the one who got there first to the mind, this tricky terrain, the gray matter [points to brain], has won the battle. And so there's no good sense for any other brand to try and fight for that same idea. If you're late to the game, it's a fool's game to try and unseat the leader in that perception. So you might as well find a new idea that you can own. 


So, and you're right, innovation's the key. This requires creativity to think about what can we be best at in the world? What are we passionate about beyond making money? Right? Where do we as a business, where do we excel where others don't? 


One of the fun things was I used to use this in a story about Wee Willie Keeler. Wee Willie Keeler was a baseball player in the late 1800s, early 1900s, who had a remarkable, consistent like .350 or more batting average every year. And to this day, he holds the record for hits before strikeout: 60. And so someone asked him, he was a very simple man, “what's the secret to your batting success? “And he said, “I hit them where they ain’t.” And that's what companies and brands need to do, hit it where it ain't. Who owns what position? How can we go after it? 


The other thing you said that I think is so true and it's something to fight against if you're a positionist, with all vigilance, is the natural human urge to copy. It's just natural in all of us. We mimic, you know, it's like the old thing. You see someone scratch your head, you end up scratching your head, someone yawns, you yawn. It's almost impossible to get out because it's so natural, but in marketing, it's deadly. Because what it does when you rush to the urge to copy what competitors are doing, you not only commoditize your own brand, but you also commoditize the whole category. 


And commoditization can also be costly because all the time and energy that you now are investing, let's say, in best practices so I can match my competition, all that time and attention diverts you from doing what you can do uniquely and differently and the best. So it creates a long road to un-focus. And I would say that the goal of marketing, and particularly branding, you know, selling is different than branding, right? You can sell a lot of things that aren't necessarily about the brand. But branding, the goal is to be strong somewhere, not weak everywhere. And if you want to follow that road of commoditization, benchmarking, it's just institutionalized imitation. And I love that definition of benchmarking. It equalizes brands. So there may be some things like with Domino's, they had the benchmark their taste and their product had to be at least palatable to the people they were trying to sell to, but it's the wrong way to go in terms of what your brand position is.


Mark Vandegrift:

Yeah, and you know, when you think about why most entrepreneurs go into business, they are creating that better thing or that different thing, filling a hole in the marketplace. Meaning, they looked at the landscape and they said, no one's doing it this way, so I'm going to go and do it this way. But then over time, and I don't know if this is because of the law of entropy or what the deal is, but they lose sight of that. Or, maybe as we transition into this third law, the idea of the power of focus, it seems like they give up on why they went into business in the first place. And we see it day after day after day, where I think you call it: the baby has been covered up with the blankets. And what we do in our Appreciative Discovery® is to uncover all those blankets and say, This is your difference. Now, let's run with it.


Lorraine Kessler:

Yep, now isn't she beautiful? Let's run with it. Yeah, and I think entropy is a good thing. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why companies become unfocused, right? They get successful, kind of goes to the law of success in one of the immutables. They go to successful and they say, what else can we be selling? Okay, what else can we be distributing? What else can we make money on? These are questions that lead to unfocus. So, and that's, you're right, entrepreneurs, we've dealt with many entrepreneurs over our years at Innisfree Majority, and I love them because they almost invariably have an idea that hits it where it ain't, right? They just have that instinct. 


Where they fall short is they rarely give as much thought to the money they need for marketing as the money they need to make the product. They don't realize that making the product or service is actually easier than winning the minds of an audience large enough to sustain their success, to get to success and then sustain it. And so they underfund their “hitting where it ain't.” And that only leaves them vulnerable to someone else seeing what they're doing with more money coming in and winning that place. So that's one of the things about entrepreneurs. I wish we could take that entrepreneurial spirit and put it into more established institutions who then suffer from this institutional imitation and have that spirit be there because they have the resources. So you kind of, you need both.


Mark Vandegrift:

Right. Yeah, let's explain how to do the power or the law of focus a little bit better. Right. Let's use our example. So we offer web services, marketing communications, digital marketing, event marketing, web development, we offer a lot of things, but we have a focus on what? Positioning. And when we advertise, when we market, everything is about positioning. Why? Because it's our differentiation. Positioning is our position. So the idea that we focus doesn't mean that all day long, all we're doing is, this is a position, this is a position, this is positioning strategy. No, we're building websites, we're building brochures, we're creating TV spots, we're creating radio spots, we're doing Google ads, we're doing all these things that we have to do to market. The only difference is we have that filter of positioning. Are we truly building our client's brand position in the marketplace with all those things we're doing? So elaborate a little bit. I think I did a little here, but elaborate on the idea of how to do focus or this law of focus correctly based on how Trout and Reese explain it.


Lorraine Kessler:

It can either be broad or it can be very, very narrow. So when you're an ad agency, a broader focus is a philosophy, an approach, right? Because that rains down on all of the tactical things that you do. And so that has greater sustainability, as long as that idea is of value to the right customer. 


And I think the thing that you were saying about, we can do advertising, we can do this, we can do media, but the difference is inserting the word, the adjective, right… can do the right advertising, the right media, the right message. This is all informed by positioning, right? It's a strive to get your message and your audience as right as rain so that you can deliver to them at the time that's right for when they're in the market or considering purchase. Positioning informs all that. So while it's broad, it has these specific tentacles. 


Now, the great agencies – and I'm a student of old advertising and the great thinkers – and I wish a lot of our young people would go back to go forward because I think they get further ahead. But like Ogilvy was all about data and research. Bernbach was about the big idea. They had philosophies that informed all that they did. Did they buy great media? Yeah, because we remember the commercials that the advertising they put out. 


We saw in our own lifetime where some of the positions for agencies became very tactical or narrow. Digital shops, only webshops, right? Only build websites, only do digital media. Originally it was only do social. And what we've seen over the last decade, they've all started to come back together because they're missing the brand piece, because they bring branding in. Because, again, consumers integrate. They don't just go to digital. And the way to get a message out isn't narrow-cast that way. 


So I feel like we have a great position, and going back to Jack Trout, when we explained to him, when he was in Northeast Ohio, and explained to him the appreciative discovery and how we set it up as the tangible step in helping people understand positioning and why we are America's #1 positioning ad agency. You need a tangibility when you're marketing a service. We explained it to him. He actually said, “that's genius.” And I thought that was great. He says, “that's really genius.” That's so needed. 


And it is needed because clients kind of have to come to this conclusion on their own. Because one of the filters we've talked about of the four, there's customer competition, context, and company. When we talk about company, that filter, you have to commit to this idea. And I'm not just talking, you know, in your head. Companies have to commit money, resources, and time, which is money, to bring this idea forward over a long period of time. So it has to come from them and it has to be something that grabs their gut before we even begin our work.


Mark Vandegrift:

Yep. And that really is that power of focus that you're talking about. When a position impacts the whole organization, it really is transformative. And it starts out that way. I really do think that most companies that start out trying to serve a hole in the marketplace have that singular focus, but it quickly devolves because we have this desire to be all things to all people.


As always, our time flies by, but for our next episode, we'll tackle a few more, maybe three or four of the immutable laws of marketing. Until then, see you next time.


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