Richard Levitt

FIRST AND FOREMOST:

There’s one single most-important piece of information you must communicate. No matter the media. No matter the audience. It has to come through implicitly and explicitly.

That’s your market position.

And it has to shine through every single headline, every word of copy.

THAT SAID:

It’s about who you are in the market: what needs you fill, what services you provide and what that means to your prospects and whoever may influence them. It guides your company on how to communicate everything from the brand to the product, and how to address both general and specific audiences.

Note this is not about the product, it’s about the company—although sometimes the two merge.

I DON’T MEAN A TAGLINE:

That comes later. A tagline is a more-creative use of language based on your position. It helps articulate it, but it is not a position unilaterally.

According to The Strategic Planning Kit for Dummies:

The positioning statement is the core message you want to deliver in every medium and everything you do.

You can turn your positioning statement into a marketing message in the future. If you need some inspiration, read through these positioning statements:

Wharton Business School: The only business school that trains managers who are global, cross-functional, good leaders, and leveraged by technology

BMW: We make the world’s best-designed vehicles

Southwest Airlines: The short-haul, no-frills, and low-priced airline

Avis: Being the second-ranked vehicle rental agency drives us to deliver better deals and service

Miller Lite: The only beer with superior taste and low caloric content

ASPIRATION ROOTED IN REALITY:

How you position yourself depends on what you do, but also where you are in your company history or product cycle. Then, to some degree, where you want to be.

A newly-formed company gets to choose who they are (or want to be) in the market based on their products, goals and aspirations. The 100 year-old juggernaut corporation has to recognize their current position and communicate that with integrity.

It can be aspirational. But it must be honest.

It starts by knowing who you are unilaterally and within your market, what you provide and why it’s unique, how it serves your customer and why they should care.

THEN YOU HAVE TO STICK WITH IT:

If your position is “We’re the company that’s easy to work with” all your communications have to support it. Ads have to be easy to get. Social media easy to read. Instruction manuals easy to get through.

Want to be easy, be easy. Want to be sophisticated, be that.

Of course, you can course-correct. But not on a daily basis.

HOWEVER:

Want to be #1? You have to earn it.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Last week, we looked at Oracle OpenWorld, a technology trade show that attracts 50,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibitors, including plenty of partners and competitors.

So positioning the event is more than just focusing on Oracle. Can’t just be about sales or networking. Or about technology at large. Or about a particular user type.

It has to be a place where the net benefit of attending is something that you take back and apply to you own situation, whatever that situation might be:

Oracle OpenWorld is the place where you learn to get greater business value out of your IT.

And you can see how that translated to one (of many) headlines.

Here are a couple more from my files:

Positioning: Working at IBM means you have access to the resources and opportunity for you to fulfill your vision and potential.

Positioning: CAPS leases shipping containers that are high tech, sustainable and reusable.

Positioning: Cambridge Technology Partners hires only the most intellectually capable people.

Positioning: Powersim turns vast amounts of data into meaningful information.

Positioning: TiVo lets you watch what you want, when you want to. (An example of when the company and product position are the same.)

NEXT WEEK:

#2: Know your product.

FIRST AND FOREMOST:

We spent the last few months exploring how and why great creative works. How to break through the clutter. How to recognize—and avoid—clichés and chestnuts. How to speak meaningfully to your audience. How to get them to take action.

THAT SAID:

Now we’re going to explore how you get there.

And that’s through a single, clear message.

IT’S ABOUT STRATEGY:

Strategy is a qualitative expression of quantitative understanding.

It starts by knowing who you are unilaterally and within your market, what you provide and why it’s unique, how it serves your customer and why they should care.

Then based on that, crafting a single, clear, unambiguous position.

Strategy is not a headline or copy. It’s not choosing illustration over photography, using Twitter over The Wall St. Journal or doing a video over a banner ad. And  it’s definitely not just restating marketing data.

Strategy informs the creative. It’s the substance behind the headline.

STRATEGY DEMANDS PICKING A LANE:

I’m not saying it’s easy. In fact, it can be really scary. But the benefits are manifold.

FOR EXAMPLE:

For years I worked on Oracle OpenWorld, a huge and influential technology trade show. And for years we went into it without strategy. That meant reinventing the wheel with each new wave of communications, with each new opportunity or challenge and every time we needed to course-correct. Different groups made different claims, all expressed differently.

It was maddening, time-consuming and unproductive.

So we started developing a creative/content strategy months before the event—based on exactly the format we’ll explore here—and slowly worked it through the system. It took patience, resilience, tenacity, flexibility and a good bit of humor.

But finally it was approved. Actually signed off by all the major players.

The strategy was: Position Oracle OpenWorld as the place where you learn to get greater business value out of your IT.

And sure enough, the whole communications cycle went more smoothly. It made a huge difference, starting in creative development. During our first major creative review—the first time the design director saw creative—he commented that the work was “more firmly grounded and yet more aspirational” than anything he’d seen at that stage.

Sweet.

Every blog post, banner, ad, poster, email, site sign, conference guide—all of it—was based on a single strategic position. When we had to re-evaluate certain threads, add new channels and include unexpected audiences or programs (which always happens) the work was faster, easier and more consistent. Better still, early registration was up, incentive-based registrations were down and the final number of total attendees exceeded goal.

NEXT WEEK:

Building block #1: Know yourself.

#2: Great copy is relevant and unexpected.

Mike Koelker was CD at FCB during a creative peak in the 80’s. He championed campaigns like The California Raisins and Levi’s 501 Blues. Sadly, he passed in 1995.

He said great advertising is “relevant and unexpected.” I believed it then and still do. It’s my mantra. A recipe for advertising alchemy.

So, props in order, here’s my point:

When people are exposed to advertising that’s pointless, self-serving or hackneyed they ignore it. You have to demand, compel, seduce and amuse the world into noticing you.

Great copy is relevant.

Most copy isn’t.

Here are a few of the worst offenders:

• Borrowed interest: Skiing sure is great and so are Floovidor hard drives.
• The contrived definition: Floovidor, n: What you think of when you think of super-cool hard drives.
• The non-claim: Floovidor—Tough as our name!
• The non-logic: When it comes to Floovidor, there’s just no denying it.
• The forced celebration: Floovidorosity!!! [image: happy people, usually a group of mixed-race gladhands who would never under any other circumstance be together]
• The sexy model: Not that I mind a sexy model, but what does she have to do with Floovidor?
• The false promise: Floovidor is Tomorrow!

Good communications is directly relevant to the prospect. It speaks to their needs and desires.

Here’s a model called the Bullshit Cluster. It’s a map of how we interact with advertising. My theory is that we create filters based on a lifetime of learning to ignore all the countless irrelevant messages we confront daily.

Great copy is unexpected.

Apple’s 1984 commercial is generally considered the best commercial ever made. Whether it is or not, it certainly broke through because it was unexpected in the category (computers), the tone (sci-fi noir) and the promise it made (1984 won’t be like 1984).

Another favorite example is this Yamaha motorcycle commercial. There’s an unexpected surprise and one clear message: it’s fast. Yeah, there’s a babe for babe’s sake. At least she’s doing something.

More examples:

Here are a few more commercials that I love. Note all of these commercials, including 1984 and Yamaha, were made by TBWA\Chiat\Day under the direction of Lee Clow. He’s my hero.

• Pioneer Audio
• Nissan
• iPod

So, with the bar set impossibly high …

As Oracle ramps up for Oracle OpenWorld, we are tasked with creating a series of banner ads. Usually, those ads say “Register Now and Save.” Relevant, sure. Unexpected? Hardly.

So I’m pitching this:

The slider makes his brain expand and so by direct demonstration Oracle OpenWorld makes his brain expand. The user gets to play with it and watch the guy’s head expand and contract, which is fun and silly. BTW, this is just a comp.

The whole ad is basically just a bunch of copy points. In fact, there is more info here than in most banners. But instead of being talked at, users are talked with.

It’s relevant, because it tells the prospect exactly what they’ll experience at the event. It’s unexpected because the message is delivered in an unconventional way.

It doesn’t take that much to make something interesting.

And I think that’s what great copy should do.