Mark Ritson on Inept Brand Postioning

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As a huge follower of Al Ries and Jack Trout’s position on brand positioning, I had to read Mark Ritson’s latest article in the ‘Professional Marketing’ magazine, attacking Australian marketer’s.

To tell you the truth, I usually dump the Australian Marketing Institute’s ‘Professional Marketing’ journal in the bin or donate it to my doctors waiting room, but this time, I got passed the usual suspects Chairman and CEO intro and read on.

Good old Mark, lays into Australian marketers by writing that we are hopelessly inept when it comes to brand positioning.

At first, I felt outraged…but then again, I was born in Warrington, UK – so he wasn’t talking about me, thats okay then.

Marketers are fully aware of the extraordinary growth in communication clutter, its how marketers have to deal with it…thats the problem. Too many of todays marketers are not educated and groomed in the importance of branding, differentiation and positioning.

Most importantly, the typical Aussie business whether its small, medium or large hasn’t fully bought into the marketing and branding thing.

In addition, Marketers are increasingly being marginalised as brand champions, key decision-makers or influencer’s, replaced by Director’s with huge ego’s, senior managers that have never heard of the term branding and my favourite…the senior executives mate or wife, who’s done a bit of marketing.

The size of the business doesn’t matter, I’ve seen and heard it all.

Mark Ritson is perfectly right in pointing out the endemic problem with brand positioning, Australian corporates do have a tendency to follow rather than differentiate. This leads to what Mark calls the ‘usual suspects’ in positioning statements.

The usual suspects in Australian positioning statements:

• Quality: 70% prevalence
• Innovative: 60% prevalence
• Value: 60%
• Integrity: 50%
• Trust: 50%
• Sustainable: 20% (but gaining fast)

My favourite has to be quality.

Go and visit Mark Ritson site, he’s written some great articles…and they make you think!

Marketers should be seen as brand custodians or high brand priests, venerated by those above and below…is that too much to ask?

How can this problem be solved…shoot all the lawyers and accountants on boards? Too risky! Then, it must be education and for more marketers to climb the corporate ladder and attain board positions.

I wish I could give you a link to Mark Ritson’s full article, but ‘Professional Marketing’ and the AMI seem to struggle with modern marketing and communication technologies and strategies.

That’s my dig at the AMI for the month.

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