In the marketing
field, positioning has been highly recommended to determine brand’s position in
the market. That is why most of the companies could focus on a certain target
market with their differentiations. However, Light indicates the new type of
approach to the customers without positioning strategy. That is called “Brand
Journalism,” and actually McDonald’s practice this concept in the real market.
This time, I would like to contrast each other and introduce my insight.
Brand Positioning
All of the
students studying Marketing are supposed to learn this concept in college. This
is often comes with STP strategy; segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
Positioning is really practical to differentiate products from others in the same
targeted market. For example, one of the largest global auto mobile companies,
Audi, states its brand slogan as “Vorsprung
durch Techinik.” According to my translation…it means “Progress by
technological innovation.” Among the competitive auto mobile industry, Audi
runs its business based on this slogan, and makes itself as most technologically
advanced product brand in the world. Also, customers are able to see the
technologically innovated designs easily because they have already had such an
image via brand positioning. This is how brand positioning works in the market.
Brand “Journalism” or “Chronicling”
Contrary to the
positioning, brand journalism avoids specific differentiations to targeted
market. The name of “Journalism” comes from the concept of magazine with a
variety of topic people choose. The case of McDonald, it provides snacks,
meals, and also coffee with the concept of McCafe.
Another example is
Prius by Toyota. The brand statement of it is “LOVE is Energy.” It uses
abstract words, so that customers are allowed to have different perceptions. A husband
might think it as family car, or a grandfather might think it as his way of
transportation. By casting abstract images, customers have their own stories to
that brand.
Pros and Cons of Each Strategy
The positioning
has strong power to appeal a certain targeted market. However, it might lose
other potential customers who are not interested in that position. The one
might choose to buy BMW for the image of high-status car, although Audi is also
actually one of the highest states cars in the world.
On the other
hand, brand journalism has potentials to get wide range of customers by means
of showing abstract images. However, it might weaken the brand power itself in
terms of vagueness. For instance, even if the Prius would be better than Audi
in terms of technological functions, people would buy Audi because of its
explicit statement.
My Insight on This Topic
Personally, I
believe McDonald’s succeed in brand journalism because of its brand power and
its industry. Generally, people know what it is when they hear “McDonald’s.” It
represents the No.1 American fast-food restaurant providing hamburgers and
snacks for a cheap price. When McDonald’s try to come up with new products,
customers expect them as cheap and fast via their experiences. However, think
about small business entity that is going to expand its brand image. How can
people know what that brand represent? It has to establish the position in the
market or industry first.
I am totally
against the concept of brand journalism for every single business entity. This logic
or theory is applicable only for the existing strong brands to expand their
target market. The funny thing is, I cannot come up with any companies that
started their branding with journalism. Even Larry, who advocates the new
concept, works for McDonald’s, which was firstly established by positioning.
I would not like
to generalize the concept of journalism as the good tool for all brands, and still would like to regard STP
theory as the most rational way of branding.
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