CREATING A SOCIAL SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND: WHY POSITIONING AND DIFFERNTATION ARE CRITICAL

Social Media has created great scale and this is the reason why positioning and differentiation are critical to the creation of a brand in the social media era. In simple terms brand is the selection of your product and the rejection of all the others---and there many others.

Here are incredible numbers to think about.  Let’s take just the food space.  In an average supermarket there are 40,000 brands. An average consumer needs to only use 85. From this 85, there is only perhaps between10-15 that a consumer needs to sustain their lives. Again, this is only the food space.  What about all the brands in cars, clothes, electronics, music, etc. How does a marketer get a consumer to focus on the one brand that the marketer is managing.

He does by two things.

POSITIONING A PRODUCT.    This is  actual,  tangible , a frame of reference.  The Bank of California is "small and friendly" in comparasion to a large bank, the Bank of America
DIFFERENTATION .   This is a perceptual thing. It is taking this product, and doing something, anything, to define in the minds of customers your product, and how it is different than your competitors product. Again, it could be ANYTHING.  One of the finest differntation campaigns of all time was when UPS differentation revolved around the color of UPS' uniform, Brown.  "Call Brown" means to call UPS. "Brown" is different than Fed EX. UPS has done a masterful job of distinguishing themselves from anyone else

A position is actual.  Differentation is perceptual (but critical to the creation of a brand). 

Nike created a sneaker that was designed especially for basketball playing. This brand positioned itself against sneakers designed for walking or running.  The challenge for the marketers in creating a brand for this sneaker was how you define this sneaker, in the minds of consumers, in contrast to other sneakers.  How do you differentiate your brand after it is positioned?

The brand a young basketball player just starting his career from the Chicago  Bull  named Michael Jordan dunking a basketball during a championship game. This dunk became the logo for the sneaker. The slogan for the sneaker was “It has to be the shoes”. The brand and its spokesman became icons in American marketing history.