The Positioning Claim - The Elevator Pitch is Alive and as Well as Ever!

I’ve never been one for slogans, mantras or corporate exhortations but recent experience of technology launches has restored my faith in the “elevator pitch”.

We understand reservations about the elevator pitch that can be as predictable, vacuous and vapid as speeches made at a beauty contest, but the principles and objectives still hold good. What’s more, where it’s well delivered the elevator pitch can instil confidence, passion and enthusiasm for a product launch.

We probably prefer the version proposed by Geoffrey Moore in his classic work on product launches, “Crossing the Chasm”. Here’s its structure:

For (target customers)

Who (have the following problem / need)

Our product is a (describe the product or solution)

That provides (cite the breakthrough capability, innovative qualities)

Unlike (reference competition)

Our product/solution (describe the key points of competitive differentiation)

This approach works. Its immediate focus is the customer and what our product does for them so it’s externally directed. It moves on to establish clear utility, distinguishing qualities and competitive differentiation. That’s not a “Miss World” speech but the nub of communicating a product’s raison d’être to the world.

The exercise is dismissed commonly because a company feels that it’s passed a certain point of maturity and doesn’t need anything as basic as an elevator pitch anymore.

There is stuff out there particularly in the consumer space that defies description and communicates nothing. But this is more often in mission statements that are meant to attest to a company’s values and beliefs. Here’s one that makes me want to shout out loud and run for the hills:

Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup, and one neighbourhood at a time.

And I thought I was just having a cup of decent coffee…

That’s an aside.

Back to the elevator statement that’s the basis of our product positioning claim. Without the claim, it’s difficult, if not impossible to communicate our product offering concisely by word of mouth. It’s more than likely that marketing materials will be all over the place with each presentation picking up on a different aspect and generating a new version of positioning. The marketplace will be uncertain about what’s being offered and become confused and hold back until it's clear. There are implications for virtually every aspect of a company’s business – for its employees, its channel partners, its investors, its R&D and its communications.

Failure to establish a clear positioning claim is not simply a problem for new businesses. We see it all the time and we’ve seen it in the last month too: great companies with competent professional staff and a great product idea whose launch event has been little more than a general treatise on the state of some new technology or other. There have been analysts, media and investors in the audience who’ve walked away asking the question, “Where does X product fit?” or worse, "What is X product?" and customers asking, “Is X right for me?” They don’t know as no one told them. This may or may not have anything to do with a company’s core competence in marketing. It may simply be that external event organisers had little understanding of the brand, the product claim or their client company’s strategic intent.

Finally, developing a good “product claim” isn't easy. Not only does it need to be simple, clear and easy to comprehend; it needs to be realistic, defensible and true. It needs evidence to support its veracity. If there’s no evidence, the competition will drill holes through it. Invariably the product claim won’t be right first time. You’ll need to communicate the claim and listen and respond to feedback to get the messaging right. You may well have to make adjustments to its language so it sits well with your audiences and their vocabulary. Competitors will pick at the initial claim and it will need adjustment and fine-tuning probably throughout the entire life of the product. It’s this aspect that makes positioning a dynamic process rather than a one-off event. As Geoff Moore puts it, “(this) means marketers revisit the same audiences many times during the life of a product. Establishing relationships of trust, therefore, rather than wowing (the customers) on a one-time basis, is key to ongoing success."



Geoffrey Wilkins

Competitive Analysis - What's really going on?

The lion was asked why he was the king of all the beasts. He replied, "Because I can roar the loudest, and when I roar, everyone else is silent." At that point, the thrush stood up and said, "That may be true, but if we go a mile or so from where you are roaring, your roar is not heard. However when I begin to sing, all the birds chirp along with me and the whole forest is filled with song."

The Talmud

“What is competitive intelligence?


Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process of monitoring the competitive environment and analysing the findings in the context of internal issues, for the purpose of decision support. CI enables senior managers in companies of all sizes to make more-informed decisions about everything from marketing, R&D, and investing tactics to long-term business strategies. Effective CI is a continuous process involving the legal and ethical collection of information, analysis that does not avoid unwelcome conclusions, and controlled dissemination of actionable intelligence to decision makers.

Why is CI important?


The pace of technological development and the growth of global trade mean that today's business environment changes more quickly than ever before. Executives can no longer afford to rely on instinct or intuition when making strategic business decisions. In many industries, the consequence of making one wrong decision may be to see the company go out of business.

Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals”

Competitive intelligence (CI) is of crucial importance in new marketing initiatives and product launches. It’s a part of our service that almost every technology client asks us to undertake.

What’s interesting to us is how often a business’s perception of its competitors is founded on a mythical assessment rather than on fact. In a recent assignment we were asked by a massive IT client to research X and Y Corporation’s activity in Z area. Z was important. They were investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a new technology concept. It transpired that X and Y Corporation had no offerings in Z and did not intend to develop in the area (at that particular time). Nevertheless its sales force believed that X and Y were competitors and planned their sales campaigns accordingly. Their activities were based on nothing but hearsay and folklore. Consequently, their “competitive marketing and positioning” was flawed. It happens. CI was vital to our client as it informed them as to who their real competitors might be and what their offerings what might look like. It guided them to develop their own solution to achieve thought leadership and attract the attention of analysts who had previously regarded them as non-players. CI really works.

But don’t let competitive activities guide your own. Lead and don’t follow. Your first goal is to satisfy your customers. It’s what they want and think that matters more. Focusing on competitors tends to stifle innovation. It also encourages “me too” marketing that ultimately focuses on costs rather than better ways of serving customers. Competitive Intelligence is important but it’s not the Holy Grail.

Competitor-based marketing frequently makes claims like “We can provide it, it’s of higher quality, it offers more functionality than Y Corporation and it’s at lower cost.”

There are some real dangers here. We’ve done competing on costs that leads to convergence, poor differentiation and commoditisation of supply. Enough said about that one. Quality is not an attribute of a product; it’s a customer perception of utility. And that increased functionality presents a dangerous trap. More often than not, it leads to over-specification. Over-specification means increased engineering and production costs and takes attention away from the customer again. Believe us? If not, think about the massive functionality on your mobile phone. The writer’s phone has an FM radio. Does yours? Ever listened to it? Who listens to FM radio on their phone? Whose idea was that?

The interpretation of CI is what counts and first, it presents an important opportunity to take stock of where exactly you stand in a market. The advantage of using Rocket Fuel comes from its independence and its intelligence. We have no axe to grind and we’ll tell it like it is. We won’t filter information and present it in a way that suits your company purpose. We’ll enable you to make real plans based on what’s actually going on in the market.

The next step is to put our grey matter to work, not simply to see if you can do better than a competitor, but to work out if there’s real scope for innovation to produce a different value curve that improves your buyer appeal and provides real marketplace differentiation.

We also encourage our clients, not only to look at what their customers want, but also what their non-customers want. It’s new customers that drive growth. Customer retention is crucial but it’s not the be all and end all of growth, nor is it an indefinite source of growth. As well as looking at your competitors, there are other interesting sources of information that may present valuable growth opportunities. Looking across other industries for applicable business models might provide valuable insights that can be put to work profitably within your own industry. Where do you believe the idea of the first budget airline came from? The airline industry? We doubt it.

Three, two, one…Ignition…Blast off!

Welcome to the Rocket Fuel Blog.

2nd June 2010 sees the official launch of Rocket Fuel Marketing, a technology marketing business specialising in product and service launches. It’s not all new but a collaboration of marketing specialists who have been in the business for twelve years or more. We bring together a full range of strategic and tactical capability in marketing that works from before the point of product conception, through development, planning and live launches to full market adoption. We embrace traditional and new marketing methods in a way that’s different and challenging. We bring enjoyment, stimulus, creativity and interest to your work. Our belief is that if we’re not stretched by what we’re doing and it’s not taxing our grey matter, then we’re probably not doing it right!

Why now?

Good question!

It’s a truism that the marketing function will frequently be cut back during an economic downturn. We’ll not debate the rights and wrongs here. It’s a fact.

Marketing creates customers, innovates and drives sales. For most organisations of any size, it’s impossible to do without it; therefore marketing resource is bought in. Consequently, a technology business may be forced to manage multiple agencies with different approaches, methods and skills…not to mention egos. Launching a new product is stressful enough. We’ve seen this multiple agency mash-up more than once of late; situations that are not only difficult to manage but where expertise is mismatched to the task in hand and strategic intent is overlooked in key aspects of the marketing and launch process. What was meant to achieve cost-savings becomes an inefficient money sink. Rocket Fuel delivers and takes responsibility for any and all marketing activities associated with a launch. Efficiencies are gained by being able to select the services you need, as much resource as you need, whenever you need it without cost penalty or wasteful inefficiency.

Another answer to the “why now?” question is to do with changes taking place in the marketing industry itself. There’s a whole new wave of marketers proselytising digital and social media and content (“content is king”) as the be all and end all of marketing. We recognise that it’s vital too but it’s not the whole story.

There are the new soothsayers of marketing doom proclaiming that marketing is dead and that it’s only purpose is lead-generation. True, the ultimate purpose of marketing is to drive sales, but again it’s not the whole story. Imagine selling the wrong product at the wrong price to the wrong customer via an inappropriate channel-to-market. You can generate as many sales-leads as you like but without a well-executed marketing strategy, you won’t make sales. Interestingly, some of these new wave experts claim that strategy is outdated…that it’s dark and medieval, that it takes place outside marketing and that it’s engineers exclusively who (should) manage product development. So is this new world one where the sales-lead generator doesn’t so much as consider the customer or their values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours or needs? There are no brand values either, since the only point of a brand is…what? You guessed it – lead generation.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the traditional marketing specialists selling hope and promise wrapped up in methodological and scientific rigour. This group may be characterised by their claim of superior knowledge, mystification of the subject or a remedial approach. They appear to work on the assumption that they have a conduit to superior market wisdom or offer the “cure” to a company’s marketing malaise.

At Rocket Fuel, we’re not career consultants or new wave advocates drawn from website design, advertising or PR. Our client service directors have worked the streets opening, negotiating and closing multi-million pound technology deals. We respect sales people and we’ve done their job too. Forging a close alliance with a sales team is, for us, a fundamental part of building a successful marketing campaign. Their views are frequently the closest to the customer and demand our respect. We’re not all theory, but we know our discipline backwards. We take pride in being practical and pragmatic, of generating ideas that connect with our clients and their customers as well as initiatives that drive sales revenue and profit growth. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

The Rocket Fuel Marketing Team