Differentiators 1

Product splits Consumers on
those who are unaware about product (people)
those who are aware about product name only (people)
those who are aware about product name and product function only (prospects)
those who are aware about product name, product function, product image (seekers)
those who are aware about product name, function, image, promise (trialers)
those who are aware about product name, function, image, promise, difference from competitors (acceptors)
those who are aware about p.n., f., i., p., d., strenths and weaknesses (loyalists and rejectors)
and those who are not

Note: name awareness correlates with usage for the most of categories. And vice versa regular usage reinforce memory very much, therefore products that are consumed by majority enjoy highest recall

Product addresses specific need/desire
This need/desire splits Consumers on

• those who has this need/desire and aware about it
• those who has this need/desire and unaware about it
  those who has not this need/desire and unaware about it
• those who has not this need/desire and aware about it

Communication and Skills. Methods, Models & Theory

http://www.12manage.com/i_cs.html

BCG Matrix - Dogs, Stars, Cows, Questin Marks

http://www.12manage.com/methods_bcgmatrix.html

Positioning can be based on

Product features
Benefits, needs, solutions
Use categories
Usage occasions
Placing and comparing it relative to another product
Product class dissociation

Three bases of positioning

Functional positioning (solve problems, provide benefits to customers)
Symbolic positioning (self-mage enhancement, ego identification, belongingness and social meaningfulness, affective fulfillment)
Experiential positioning (provide sensory stimulation, provide cognitive stimulation)

Positioning Technology

Identify competing products
Identify the attributes (aslo called dimensions) that define the product 'space'
Collect information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each product on the relevant attributes
Determine each products' share of mind
Determine each products' current location in the product space
Determine the target market's preffered combination of attributes (reffered to as an ideal vector)
Examine the fit between: the positions of competing products, the position of your product and the position of the ideal vector
Select optimum position

It is possible to sell reasoning

http://www.reason-inc.com/press.php

First Russian magazine about identity & design

http://www.artgraphics.ru/identity.html

Great ad blog with lots of links

http://adverblog.com

Battle of the ad blogs, Winners!

AdLand ad-rag.com by the adgrunts for the ad

http://ad-rag.com/127764.php

Account Consolidation

There are a number of valid arguments for agency consolidation, including: Consistency of brand positioning, optimization of best practices, economies of scale, and command of more and better resources commensurate with the client’s importance. Contrary arguments include limiting creative points-of-view and losing the edge that comes from constant competition.
Those contrary arguments lose steam when clients have the opportunity to consolidate their accounts within holding companies, as Pepsico (Omnicom), HSBC (WPP) and many others have done. They can avail themselves of a variety of creative resources, and still keep individual units on their toes with the threat of moving the business to another unit. (Make no mistake, they may be part of one corporate family, but there is intense competition between the units of a holding company.)
In the end, perhaps the most compelling argument for account consolidation is economic. The more volume a client gives an agency, the better terms it can negotiate. The agency holding company model makes it a win-win situation: CMO’s can have access to the variety of creative and other resources they require, CEO’s and CFO’s get a better financial deal, and the holding companies have greater income certainty.
Dismissing consolidation as “one stop shopping” or “putting all eggs in one basket” misses the point. These are big business decisions made for sound business reasons. It is wishful thinking to believe consolidation is a myth.

Are Consumers Smart Enough to Tell the DIfference Between an Object and a Person?

Thanks to MIT Advertising Lab for pointing to a provocative piece in the current issue of Seed Magazine. Turns out that Harvard and U Michigan have poured a vat full of cold Gatorade on the conventional wisdom that brands have personalities just like people…
“During the study—the first ever to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),to examine how different regions of the brain are affected when thinking about certain qualities of brands—20 subjects were asked if 450 adjectives, like “down-to-earth,” “sophisticated” or “warm-hearted,” were applicable to themselves and other people. Then they were asked if those same human-like qualities could be judgments about brands they know and use.
The research team found that while the same words were being used to describe people and products, different regions of the brain were activated when subjects were talking about one or the other. The fMRI scans detected that there was a greater neural response in the medial prefrontal cortex regions of the brain when applying the adjectives to people. But when focusing on brands, like Wal-Mart, Starbucks or Ben & Jerry’s, the left inferior prefrontal cortex was activated, an area of the brain known to be involved in object processing."
Surprise, suprise: consumers are smart enough to think of things they buy as objects – or, to use an archaic term: products.
http://being-reasonable.com/index.php/weblog/C26/

Differentiate or die

Траут ввел слово differentiate в оборот. Поэтому все, что разделяет потенциальных потребителей на группы, будем называть дифференциаторы. Хотя ничего не мешает называть их разделителями, сегментаторами, критериями и т.п. Но Траут уже создал устойчивое слово в массовом сознании.

The brand lifecycle and consumer profiling

EMOTION CATEGORIES

GROUP	SPECIFICATION	CATEGORY LABEL AND EMOTION TYPE
Well-Being	appraisal of a situation as an event	joy: pleased about an event distress: displeased about an event
Fortunes-of-Others	presumed value of a situation as an event affecting another	happy-for: pleased about an event desirable for another gloating: pleased about an event undesirable for another resentment: displeased about an event desirable for another jealousy*: resentment over a desired mutually exclusive goal envy*: resentment over a desired non-exclusive goal sorry-for: displeased about an event undesirable for another
Prospect-based	appraisal of a situation as a prospective event	hope: pleased about a prospective desirable event fear: displeased about a prospective undesirable event
Confirmation	appraisal of a situation as confirming or disconfirming an expectation	satisfaction: pleased about a confirmed desirable event relief: pleased about a disconfirmed undesirable event fears-confirmed: displeased about a confirmed undesirable event disappointment: displeased about a disconfirmed desirable event
Attribution	appraisal of a situation as an accountable act of some agent	pride: approving of one's own act admiration: approving of another's act shame: disapproving of one's own act reproach: disapproving of another's act
Attraction	appraisal of a situation as containing an attractive or unattractive object	liking: finding an object appealing disliking: finding an object unappealing
Well-being/ Attribution	compound emotions	gratitude: admiration+joy anger: reproach+distress gratification: pride+joy remorse: shame+distress
Attraction/ Attribution	compound emotion extensions	love:admiration+liking hate:reproach+disliking

Emotion

word motivation and the word emotion come from the Latin word movere, meaning "to move."

Empathy

Empathy -- reading other people's emotions without their having to tell you what they are feeling.

Emotions - wikipedia

Acceptance
Anger
Anticipation
Boredom
Disgust
Envy
Fear
Guilt
Hate
Hope
Joy
Jealousy
Love
Regret
Remorse
Sadness
Shame
Sorrow
Surprise

total behavior construct

Pyschiatrist William Glasser's theory of the human control system states that all human behavior is composed of four simultaneous components: deeds, ideas, emotions, and physiological states. He asserts that we choose the idea and deed and that the associated emotions and physiological states also occur but cannot be chosen independently. He calls his construct a total behavior to distinguish it from the common concept of behavior. He uses the verbs to describe what is commonly seen as emotion. For example, he uses 'to depress' to describe the total behavior commonly known as depression which, to him, includes depressing ideas, actions, emotions, and physiological states. Dr. Glasser also further asserts that internal choices (conscious or unconcious) cause emotions instead of external stimuli.