By C. Frederic John

Few things are more critical, or more basic to marketing than positioning. Yet few aspects of the marketing mix receive less thought or on-going attention. Why? In my opinion, there are two reasons: all too often positioning is thought of as tactical rather than strategic, and as static rather than dynamic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Give It Some More Respect!
Positioning is not a public posture, a clever slogan, or a sophisticated form of spin thrown up to achieve short-term goals. It’s an integral part of your strategic plan. In fact, positioning can be considered the manifestation of your strategic plan in the public arena, reflecting a conscious decision of how best to project yourself into the marketplace.

The heart of any effective strategic positioning is differentiation—emphasizing what’s truly unique about your offering. This has proved the most challenging aspect to many travel and tourism businesses, especially destinations.

While successful destination campaigns abound, the similarities across programs for competing destinations often outweigh the real differences. This prevents both travelers and trade from developing a deeper sense of the identity of many locations. A related problem is the over-reliance on the “Chinese-menu” approach, promotions that simply itemize numerous attractions or benefits without providing a unifying context.

Airlines, hospitality chains, cruise lines, and rental car companies face similar challenges, in part because of the perceived similarities in their respective offerings among the traveling public.

Differentiation is often achieved through a succinct statement that communicates more than just concrete information. Facts are usually of secondary importance to more subjective aspects in the selection process. In destination marketing, such a statement should capture the unique essence of a place, much as Shakespeare did in these few lines:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle...
This precious stone set in the silver sea...
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…
Richard the Second, Act II, Scene 1

Short on specifics, perhaps, but very compelling. That’s what effective positioning is all about.

Constructing a Positioning Strategy
Building an effective positioning strategy demands thought, time, creativity, and a healthy respect for the current perceptions of the market. It requires a deep understanding of the criteria that really drive selection, as well as knowing which aspects differentiate your offering from competition in the collective mind of the market.

Selecting the building blocks—the key messages—is only half the task. Organizing them into a meaningful structure and expressing the result in a convincing manner are even more critical, and where many creative efforts fall short.

Generally, the most effective positioning structures are thematically integrated. They emphasize a few core themes that often express personal benefits or more general aspects, such as: “saves me time”; “lets me escape the routine”; “where I’ll meet the right people”; and “puts me in touch with other cultures.”

More specific or descriptive attributes play a subordinate role, and are best used to elaborate or substantiate these general claims.

Such a thematically integrated set of messages still demands an overarching statement that expresses the unique identity of the place or organization. Sometimes it springs directly from the core themes, weaving them together into a convincing whole. In other cases, the overarching statement emerges as an unstated element implicit in all the key themes.

The structure, while essentially fixed, can be treated flexibly. Various elements of the positioning (such as specific core themes) may be emphasized in different campaigns, or when appealing to different target audiences. Emphasis may also reflect which competitor you are most eager to differentiate yourself from at any given time. And this may change over time.

The Evolution of a Positioning
As a key component of its public persona and its brand equity, a strategic positioning is not something an organization should change with the weather. It takes years to build up and nurture. At the same time, an organization’s public stance should evolve gradually just as the organization does, reflecting its own position in the marketplace.

Like any other asset, a positioning must be managed, and that means it should periodically be adjusted to reflect changes in the overall strategy of the organization. At times it may be necessary to completely revamp the positioning, especially if the organization’s position in the market has shifted dramatically.

Let’s trace the evolution of a hypothetical enterprise from “also-ran” to industry leader, and consider the broader strategic and positioning implications at each stage of its growth. Let’s assume our company is a service provider in the travel and hospitality sector, but it could also be an attraction or other destination.

When we pick up the story, its industry has a clear leader, two major challengers, a would-be challenger, and two tiers of lesser players. Our company is one of the undifferentiated “pack” – a mid-sized player with dreams of glory.

Its first goal is to break away from the pack, becoming in effect a second would-be challenger. The broader strategic goals at this point are:

• Clearly differentiate the company from other mid-sized players
• Compete directly with the weakest players at the next level (essentially Would-Be Challenger 3)
• Build share at the expense of the smaller and mid-sized players, and whatever customers it can shake from Would-Be Challenger 3

STEP ONE
This might be an ideal time for the organization to develop a new positioning strategy that matched its ambitions. The key positioning goals are:

• Build up basic awareness/familiarity with organization
• Develop a new positioning that communicates the dynamic (maybe even feisty) nature of the enterprise
• Emphasize elements that differentiate company from the pack
• Selectively focus on elements that differentiate it from Would-Be Challenger 3
By the next stage our company has successfully displaced Would-Be Challenger 3 and is competing head-on with the two existing challengers. General strategic goals might be:
• Growth (share, acquisition, etc.)
• Continue to build visibility
• Challenge the Challengers for specific turf (markets, targets, etc.)
• Focus on one Challenger as prime target for next move up
• Start acting like an industry leader

STEP TWO
From a positioning standpoint, this means:

• Communicate that the field has grown from three to four major players
• Continue to promote a sense of dynamism, but also a sense of responsibility within the industry
• Continue to emphasize elements that differentiate the company from Would-Be Challenger 3
• Start focusing on elements that differentiate from at least one of the existing Challengers
If all goes well, our company may become the primary challenger to the still dominant Industry Leader. At this stage it would want to:
• Compete directly with the Industry Leader for share, position within the industry, and new growth opportunities
• Distance itself from all other players in the industry—and keep them back

STEP THREE
This could well be the time to seriously revamp the company’s overall positioning to reflect its enhanced leadership status in the industry, and to reflect the major differences between the company and the current Leader. The positioning implications to further the strategic goals are:

• Actively promote new positioning
• Assert qualities that clearly differentiate the company from the Industry Leader
• Exploit key advantages over Industry Leader
• Continue to differentiate from other top Challengers in key areas

STEP FOUR
By Step 4, our company has arrived as the New Industry Leader. It must now strive to:

• Dominate market share
• Redefine the leadership role after its own image
• Set a new direction for the industry
• Watch out for new challengers emerging from the Pack

From a positioning standpoint, it would want to:

• Refine its positioning to emphasize established leadership position
• Place greater emphasis than before on long-term historical track record—accomplishments, innovations, stability, management leadership, etc.
• Use positioning to reflect its own vision of the future of the industry

At each stage of this process (which would normally take at least a decade), positioning is the handmaiden of the greater strategic plan, and selective differentiation is the cutting edge. Old personas are not easily shed unless they clearly do not fit what an enterprise has become, but are modified to reflect current situations. Communicating each shift along the way requires sustained efforts and careful pacing. The key to pacing is to remember that the market’s perceptions of an industry often lag far behind changes in the industry itself. Alter positioning too fast and you will lose not only a sense of what you are, but also create an uncertainty about what you were.

Ultimately, positioning is about respect for the market—both the consumers and the trade who play such a critical role in communicating between suppliers and consumers. It is a way of acknowledging the importance of their collective perceptions of your enterprise. And it is a way of accepting the power of the market in shaping the successes and failures of all those who compete in the travel and tourism industry.