“Positioning is like finding a seat on a crowded bus”
Most brands sleepwalk onto the bus and sit on top of one another.
The smart brands look left, right, find an empty row, paint their logo on it and sing sweetly like the Sirens.
I spent the last few weeks thinking about how brands differentiate themselves
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“Positioning is like finding a seat on a crowded bus”
Most brands sleepwalk onto the bus and sit on top of one another.
The smart brands look left, right, find an empty row, paint their logo on it and sing sweetly like the Sirens.
*Your goal is to own a space in the customer’s mind. You do this by differentiating yourself.*
Differentiation is not a dark art. It's something you can learn. Here’s the different ways to achieve it:
Point at the status quo and pit yourself against it. Contrast burns your brand into the customer's mind.
• Hey pit themselves against mainstream email
• Lemonde pit themselves against insurance stereotypes
• “I'm a Mac” pit themselves against the PC
Think Patagonia and the environment, Ben and Jerry's and social justice, Black Rifle Coffee and gun rights.
Some will hate it. Others will rally behind you. And that's the point. Fence sitters don't buy.
When Drift launched in 2016 they were just another startup in the mushy bucket of live chat software.
How to stand out?
Well, they reframed live chat as “conversational marketing” and made it their mission to own this new category.
Turn yourself into the product and no one can compete with you.
Think Kanye’s shoes, Nigella's cookbook, Wicks’s workout.
Instead of trying to be everything for everyone go all-in on one niche or one feature.
Limitation makes you easy to sum up. Being easy to sum up makes you memorable.
• Contrast - Marketing content was fluffy. My goal was no fluff
• Personality - Well, I write them all
• Limitation - Just examples. No agency, jobs board, etc...
Positioning isn't something you make up on a whim.
Behind great positioning is a story. Positioning is the TLDR. The story makes it memorable.
Look at Drift. Conversational marketing isn't plucked out the sky. It's the final bullet point in their story.
If you learnt something you might like my weekly newsletter. More short, sweet and practical case studies :)
Over and out — Harry
https://t.co/7gnJQydfDz
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The emergence of many new hypocrisies typically heralds an emerging new cultural synthesis.
Are you disturbed that you agree with one of those viewpoints? Or perhaps that other people you respect do?
1/x
Let me offer a framework for thinking about things like this, something called an “Omega Event.”
It was first described to me by Erik Martin, one of Reddit's first community managers:
In governance, Omega Events exist due to the fact that no system of beliefs, no worldview, no set of rules, can account for everything that will ever happen.
Eventually someone (or some group) will do something that lies outside the scope of all existing rules, and you will have to make decisions again from first principles.
Sometimes the Omega Event emerges from the confluence of many unrelated factors. When it does, it is wholly different from anything you’ve encountered.
Are you disturbed that you agree with one of those viewpoints? Or perhaps that other people you respect do?
1/x
\u2014 HYPOCRISY \u2014
— emily (@emnode) January 9, 2021
\U0001f4cdFree market conservatives outraged that a private social media company can decide who has access to its service.
\U0001f4cdSo called liberals overjoyed at the prospect of powerful corporations taking control of the content and information we're allowed to see.
Let me offer a framework for thinking about things like this, something called an “Omega Event.”
It was first described to me by Erik Martin, one of Reddit's first community managers:
In governance, Omega Events exist due to the fact that no system of beliefs, no worldview, no set of rules, can account for everything that will ever happen.
Eventually someone (or some group) will do something that lies outside the scope of all existing rules, and you will have to make decisions again from first principles.
Sometimes the Omega Event emerges from the confluence of many unrelated factors. When it does, it is wholly different from anything you’ve encountered.
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So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.