Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? There is enough evidence to the contrary. Yet why do we continue to believe it?

Blame it on the rhyming nature of the aphorism!

When sentences are spoken rhymingly, it ‘enhances processing fluency’, say linguists and cognitive scientists. Rhymes sound nice, are easily understood and, hence, we equate that smoothness with accuracy. We even believe they are true!

In a famous study, two psychologists, Matthew McGlone and Jessica Tofighbakhsh gave participants 60 aphorisms and asked them which one were accurate descriptions of human behaviour.

30 of them were lines that rhymed. For example, Woes unite foes. Life is mostly strife.

They took 30 other rhyming aphorisms but modified them to make them non-rhyming. For example, Woes unite enemies. Life is mostly struggle.

Participants rated the aphorisms that rhymed as far more accurate than the ones that didn’t rhyme. Though each pair essentially meant the same thing!

This cognitive bias can be used effectively by marketers to make their work more memorable and engaging. They could use rhymes to make brand names, baseline, advertising copy, social media posts and what have you. Customers will remember them easily and, importantly, believe them to be true too!

The smart ones already have. Take brand names: 7-Eleven, Krackjack, Cakes & Bakes etc.

And baselines too. Rocotile, the roof tool tiles brand claims: ‘No need for AC, Cooling your home is easy’. Gillette sums it up even better: ‘The best a man can get’.

Rhymes can enhance reason. Processing fluency being the reason!

What happens when you put the cart before the horse?

If you are lucky, the horse just laughs at you. If you are not, the horse may kick at an awkward angle and the proverbial ball may not be in your court!

Most marketers do the same thing with similar calamitous consequences for their brands. They believe the secret to winning is launching a new brand in an existing category. They are part of the ‘better products win’ brigade. A handful may succeed too. Never mind the exorbitant cost they pay for it or the enormous luck they may be blessed with.

The smart ones realize the cardinal principle of winning in marketing is in not searching for a new brand but for a new category. You see, opportunity does not lie in brands. It lies in creating categories. In the mad rush to build brands, the smartness in building a new category is often overlooked.

Paper Boat was not just a new brand. It created a new category.

Netflix was not just a new brand. It opened a new category.

Maggie was not just a new brand. It formed a new category.

Paper Boat, Netflix, Maggi et al fashioned new categories and were the first to enter them. Thus, they reaped enormous strategic advantages. For starters, there was no other brand to compare them with. They started running the race alone. Any athlete would tell you the power of a good head start. It gives time to enter the customers’ mind. It helps build a sizeable market lead. Importantly, it gives the brand the luxury of making mistakes and still get away with it!

They say it’s lonely at the top. When you create a category and start running, it’s pretty much lonely at the start too!

More than many research have clearly pointed out to an indisputable fact. Category creators experience faster growth. They receive much higher valuations from investors than businesses that bring only incremental innovations to the market.

Consumers think categories first and then talk brands. You decide to have coffee first. Then look around to figure out which restaurant brand to have it from. You decide to watch a movie first. Then wonder which one to watch. You decide to marry first. Then search for the matrimonial site you need to register in.

Al Ries and Laura Ries put it so very eloquently in their book ‘The Origin Of Brands. ‘Imagine shopping at a grocery store that doesn’t have any signs pointing you in the right direction. Odds are you’d spend a lot of time wandering the aisles until you found what you needed. People want a sense of direction when they’re shopping, and they want to see their options grouped together – whether that’s kitchen tools, breakfast cereals, or winter coats. One way to do this is with product categories.’

In spite of the power of searching for a new category to create than of looking for a new brand to launch, why do most marketers don’t see this inevitable market truth?  

Blame it on research!

Rather, on the erroneous understanding of what the customer says in research. When probed about choices, the consumer articulates her needs in terms of brands. Not in terms of categories. When asked what would they prefer to make in the kitchen when they don’t have much time, they would say Maggi, not noodles. They are just using the brand name to represent what they want. Sadly, marketers interpret it otherwise.

Put simply, categories first, brands next. That’s the path to take in the new product development game. When you are the first to create and enter a category, the consumer sees you first. Buys you first. And makes you first!

William Shakespeare is a great bard but would have made a poor marketer. He got it all wrong when he said in Romeo and Juliet ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. It was to infer that the names of things do not affect what they really are.

Untrue!

In marketing, a name when it becomes a brand is everything. The difference between a name and a brand is that the name doesn’t have any associations. It’s just that – a name. Brand is a blinker. Once the marketer puts it on the customers, they can see the brand only one way – the way the marketer has fashioned it.

Staying on the subject of litterateurs, does the name Richard Galbraith ring a bell? He is the author of a crime novel ‘The cuckoo’s calling’. It debuted in Amazon in 2013. How was the book?

Who knows? Other than the 1,500 buyers who had bought it, no one else knew about it. Did you, till you read it here?

It was languishing at number 4,079 on the bestseller list. And then something happened. Or, someone happened. A someone who found out that Richard Galbraith was actually a pseudonym for a lady called J.K. Rowling. The Harry Porter author had masked her name to ensure people read her book without being biased by her stardom.

Were people biased? I don’t know. You tell me. Once people knew who Richard Galbraith actually was, there was an Armageddon to Amazon. The cuckoo’s calling went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies and became the best-selling book in Amazon. Rowling became Galbraith and sold a mere 1,500. When Galbraith became Rowling, her book became Number One!

If the story doesn’t convince you about the power of a brand, here’s some music to your ears. Literally! Joshua Bell, the renowned violinist, once performed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hundreds paid in thousands to witness one of the world’s finest exponents of the violin. There was hardly a space left in the hall to drop a face mask.

The next day a casually-dressed Joshua stood outside the subway station, took his famed $3.5 million Stradivarius violin, left the case open for tips and started playing. His electrifying performance was lost on the thousands who passed by without bothering to acknowledge, far less hear the mesmerizing music of a master. The reason is obvious. Joshua was not Joshua outside the subway station.

A rose by any other name isn’t sweet, Mr. Shakespeare!

This is about Brand Positioning. Nah, I am not going to insult your intelligence by telling you what positioning is but rather present a new way of positioning brands. It goes by the name Bridged Positioning.

No, this is not one more jargon intended to make marketing look and feel like science. Bridging is the technique to position or reposition a brand optimally. Optimally in the sense that the brand will then make the widest, most powerful appeal to its target. The concept itself is a result of studying successful positioning of brands around the world. This is not just a new term but an all-new way of positioning brands. Believe me, this one makes sense, and more importantly it works. Read on.

The basic premise of bridged positioning is that every brand promise consists of a functional and psychological component. And the attempt is to find that single word or phrase that captures both and ties it intrinsically to the brand.

Put differently, bridging is the process whereby a key functional component of a product is bridged to a relevant and credible psychological satisfaction derived by it. And the bridged term will most effectively communicate the totality of what the brand offers and what it stands for.

Let’s take an example. Colgate is PROTECTION.

Is protection a functional promise? I understand it is. Is protection psychological as well? You bet it is.

Now here is a positioning that promises functional utility to the user and also satisfies the psychological satisfaction derived by being protected. That is bridged positioning. And the beauty of this technique is that the two fundamental components are captured in a single word.

That is the hallmark of bridged positioning. The functional and psychological benefits of a brand encapsulated by a single word or phrase.

Allow me to present a few examples; immensely successful ones.

Heineken is REFRESHMENT.

Pond’s Body Lotion is SOFTNESS.

Scooty is FREEDOM.

Kingfisher is FUN.

Study the bridged position these brands have occupied. Softness is as much functional as it is psychological. Freedom is physical and psychological as well. Needless to say, these brands are able to satisfy the functional and psychological aspects of a purchase and expectedly have become leaders in their respective categories.

You see, consumers will never look at a component individually – always in a total context. They will judge function in the context of the psychological element and vice versa. As the user responds to whole gestalt, these elements support each other and are consistent. They fit perfectly.

Bridged positioning is a big, relevant, motivating and unifying idea. The integrated idea is the bridged need.

Dettol is PROTECTION.

Johnson & Johnson is CARE.

Suffola is HEALTH.

Sharon Plywood is STRENGTH.

These brands have been able to capture both the functional and psychological aspects of purchase in a single word. Study successful brands and you would find  most of them holding bridged positions.

In short, Bridged positioning is about the integration of the two key needs of any purchase – functional and psychological – and therein lies its power and persuasive ability to woo customers.

I am not for a minute saying, only bridged positioning succeeds. All I am saying is bridged positioning increases your chances of success in the marketplace. Triumphant brands bear this truth.

Before I sign off, let me present a few such integrated concepts that are as much functional as they are psychological.

Attractiveness, Success, Safety, Admiration, Power, Security, Celebration…

If you agree these are bridged terms, you might also be able to spot brands that have appropriated them to rule their respective categories.

Give it a thought, will you.

Think of a theatre in your city. Here’s a question. What comes to your mind first when you think of it?

Nothing, right!

If you were the theatre owner, would you be worried? You better be. You just realized your brand means nothing to the consumer. Even worse, your brand means nothing to you!

The problem is theatres are not positioned. They lack a personality.

Why should theatres be positioned you ask? Isn’t the theatre positioned by the film that is running currently you argue? And because the films keep changing and there is a new movie all the time, should theatres be positioned at all you elaborate? Is it even possible to position a theatre, far less build a personality, you dispute?

In other words, what you are telling me and yourself is that you would invest crores of money building a theatre and spend lakhs of money maintaining it and let your fortune, future and fate decided by an insipid film that runs it. Isn’t that thought as much scary as it is stupid?

Wouldn’t you rather build a theatre keeping in mind the target audience you wish to attract by studying the location, the characteristics of the neighbourhood and the accessibility etc? And then follow it by playing only films that suit your target audience? Thereby telling the world, loud and clear, what kind of theatre you have; and what kind of experience they can expect?

Imagine this. You are building a theatre in a predominantly residential neighborhood. You position your theatre as ‘wholesome family fun’. Imagine every facet of design – from entrance to exit, from façade to restrooms, from seating to parking – every little detail is conceived, created and caressed with your target audience in mind – the family. You play only family movies; seating is designed in threes, fours or fives – decided by the size of the family. Even the food and snacks are sold in combo or family packs. Special restrooms designed for kids. Maybe even nappy changing rooms; breast-feeding facility for moms. Put simply, a theatrical version of McDonald’s.

And when you do that, you are doing a few things first, and right. To begin with, your target audience knows who you are. They wouldn’t care much about the film since they know what to expect. Which means you depend less on the film you run to define your success, and depend more on your theatre to defend your fortune? A far better way of doing business, you would agree.

If you own a multiplex, it gets even better. Imagine you have a 6-theatre complex. Dedicate each theatre to a certain target group. Like a portfolio of brands that has made companies like P&G invincible. Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Rejoice – three shampoos yet addressing three different audiences with three different positionings.

Make one theatre target kids – play only animations, adventure etc. Rough flooring to take the abuse of young legs; restrooms whose urinals suit the size of the user; small serving of food and snacks among other things; maybe video arcades on the side.

Position the second theatre for, say, couples; movies that screen only love stories and romantic comedies. Seats for two; armrest that folds so one could hold their partner’s hands, among many other things! Maybe, even sell Unwanted 72 tablets along with popcorn and Pepsi!

How about a third theatre for young adults – action movies, adult comedies and more. More legroom maybe; a separate smoking section…..you figure out the rest.

Am sure you are getting the picture!

You would also realize you are not only branding your theatre but building a strong personality for it as well.

And not just that. Theatres will then become the next powerful advertising medium. When you showcase specific audiences, marketers are bound to follow by pouring tons of advertising money – prior to the movie, during intermission and all inside the complex – to reach their specific target audience!

Theatres have ceased to be film-watching devices long ago. Today, they are sources of entertainment; providers of experience.

Owners have failed to realize this and theatres are a dying breed. Multiplexes have been, erroneously, considered a whiff of fresh air that has come to revive movie-going experience. Without a proper positioning and personality, they are just oxygen cylinders to prolong the agony.

It’s time to redefine things. In fact, it’s time to define things! It’s time theatre owners give themselves a new lease of life. Positioning theaters and building an appropriate personality is a good starting point!

Let the show begin!

There are doctors who don’t exercise!

There are policemen who don’t wear helmets!

And then there are B-Schools who don’t practice branding!

Why do the preachers of branding don’t practice it? Take the all-important facet of branding i.e., Positioning. How many B-Schools have actually positioned themselves? Here is a simple exercise. Think of any B-school; what comes to your mind when you thought of that name.

Yup, nothing!

Should B-schools position themselves?

Why not? And why shouldn’t they? They are selling a product; they are trying to differentiate themselves from one another; with increasing competition and the fickle nature of their rankings that seem to change every year, they need to stand for something in the student consumer minds. Read positioning!

If everything in life – products, places and people – can and should be positioned, why shouldn’t B-Schools?

Close Up means freshness.

Goa means beaches.

Rajinikanth means style.

Isn’t the whole objective of branding to make a product positioned on a workable and ownable platform and make it preferred over the generic? Doesn’t this apply to anything? Then why not B-schools? Or for that matter anything that can be marketed and merchandised?

B-Schools have become just a glorified commodity. Like mineral water. A category patronized and purchased for its generic benefits. Just as it is in the mineral water category, the B-school category has varying image and price point levels.

The top tier schools – the IIMs – form the first leg. Call it the Evian and Perrier club. What’s the difference between Evian and Perrier? As much difference as you can find among the various IIM’s!

Then you have the second-tier schools. Name them the Aqua Fina and Kinley club. How is Aqua Fina different from Kinley? The same way XLRI is different from a Narsee Monjee!

And the bottom rack of B-schools is filled with dime-a-dozen – a la the Bisleris. One as good or as same as the other. How do you differentiate one B-school from the other on this rack? Exactly the way you differentiate one Chinese face from the other. You don’t; and can’t!

You might remind me about Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Medical colleges not positioned themselves either. You might ask why I don’t accuse them as well.

What right do I have to ask them to execute branding and position themselves, when the preachers themselves don’t practice it?