CREATING AN ADVERTISING POSITIONING STATEMENT | THE LOOMIS AGENCY

It’s surprising how many businesses don’t expend the effort to work through the questions behind the development of a strong brand positioning statement.  Positioning statements are  the very foundation of good advertising campaigns and serve to inform outside ad agency resources and internal team members alike about the mission of the business. 

If your company is working with an advertising agency it is likely the team at that advertising agency has exposed you to the fundamental questions behind solid positioning statements.  If you are not working with an advertising agency, or your advertising agency simply hasn’t taken you through process the following will be of interest.

The Seven Questions Behind Strong Positioning Statements:

Who: Are you?

What: What business are you in?

For whom: What people do you serve?

What need: What are the special needs of the people you serve?

Against whom: With whom are you competing?

What’s different: What makes you different from those competitors?
So: What’s the benefit?  What unique benefit does a customer derive from your service?

Let’s break this down a little further.

Who are you?  Answer this question in terms of your company or product vision, culture, or purpose.

What business are you in?  Is your company selling staffing services, or are you in the business of keeping companies moving?  Or, do you sell talent?

What people do you serve?  Talk about the target audience for your product or service.  But, don’t limit your response to demographics.  Answer in terms of mindsets.

What are the special needs of the people you serve?  Every audience has special needs.  For instance, many quick service restaurants sell hamburgers, but there a dozen different ways to do that based on the answer to this question.

With whom are you competing?  The obvious answer is all of the other companies in your category.  Not so fast.  What other activity or product could a customer swap for your brand. Dig into this question and the answers will surprise you.

What makes you different from those competitors?  Answer this in terms that move your brand away from parity.

What’s the benefit?  This is the big “so what” question.  Companies often believe the perceived benefit they deliver is more significant than it is.  A good ad agency can help you sort that out.

Of course, these questions and the brief elaboration in this post only hint at the much larger and more involved process behind developing a strong brand positioning statement.  Your advertising agency should be capable of taking you through a comprehensive brand planning process that begins with research, leads to true insight, and results in advertising communication that resonates deeply with your customers.

The LOOMIS Agency is an award winning Dallas advertising agency specializing in retail-facing advertising.  The advertising agency has expertise in generating store traffic, customer frequency and retail sales.  The LOOMIS Agency has a variety of regional and national clients including, but not limited to, Dairy Queen, Stanley Steemer, Cash America, Papa John’s, and several regional bank systems.  For information on The LOOMIS Agency contact Mike Sullivan at (972) 331-7000.