The Process of Overcoming Resistance to Advertising

In other words, simplify the message. This is what positioning is all about. A key concept in this regard is that an advertiser should not set out to change a person's mind because the average person hates to be told that he or she is wrong about something. Thus to succeed, advertising should reinforce what is already in the prospect's mind by attempting to match prior knowledge or experience. As Ries and Trout (1986) put it, "To be successful today, you must touch base with reality . . . and the only reality that counts is what's already in the prospect's mind" (p. 5).

In general, there are two ways of getting into a prospect's mind, the easy way and the hard way. The easier way is to get there first. Being first fixes an idelible message in the prospect's mind. For instance, when people think of copiers they think Xerox. Who's number two in the copier world? Most people have a vague idea, but vague is totally unacceptable in the world of advertising.

If a product cannot be first in a prospect's mind, there are viable alternative strategies. People tend to rank products in order to cope with the product explosion. This ranking can be visualized as the rungs on a ladder. Some ladders have many rungs, others just a few.

An important concept that is echoed throughout this book is the power of the name. According to Ries and Trout (1986), choosing an appropriate name is the single most important marketing decision that a business or person can make (p. 71). In terms of the positioning process, the best name that can be given a product is one that describes its major benefits. Thus names like Head and Shoulders for shampoo or Intensive Care for skin lotion are more effective than Royal for calculators and typewriters. The authors cite a psychology study in which even elementary teachers demonstrated bias in the grading of term papers based on students' first name, e.g., grading popular names like David and Michael more favorably than unpopular names like Hubert and Elmer.

An example of positioning a product on a marketing ladder is Avis which took an "against position" to gain market share over first place competitor Hertz in the rent-a-car business. Avis lost money in the business for 13 years in a row until it acknowledged in its advertising campaign that it was No. 2. Thus Avis positioned itself on the rent-a-car ladder with Hertz as number one, itself as number two, and National as number three. Avis made money ever since it launched this campaign, albeit many marketing people misinterpreted its success as being based on the advertised claim that "Avis tries harder." Although Avis has subsequently changed its campaign throughout the years, the slogan that sticks in the public's mind is its rank comparison of itself with industry leader Hertz.

 

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