Red Ladder, Blue Ladder
An Alternative Approach To Personal Branding Positioning Strategy
by Steve Byrne
The following discusses how many brand managers approach building positioning strategies to launch their new products. What we learn from understanding this process can be beneficial when applied to developing a personal brand positioning strategy.
The development of a product positioning strategy begins with existing perceptions in the minds of consumers for any given market segment. Examples of these segments include soft drinks, laundry soap and rental cars along with hundreds of others.
The first step is to identify the consumer’s perceptions relative to a specific market segment. For example, in the laundry soap segment some may place the Tide brand as their first choice, and then the Cheer brand as their second choice.
The original authors of positioning strategies (Al Ries & Jack Trout) provided a “ladder” metaphor to illustrate a hierarchy for these brand preferences. Tide on the first rung of a ladder, Cheer on the second rung and so on down the rungs of the ladder.
To show how positioning strategy works, let’s look at a case study. In this study there was a market segment ladder called “cold medicine”. Several decades ago, the cold medicine ladder had a half dozen leading brands battling it out for better positions on this ladder. Some consumers may place the Vicks brand on the top rung of this ladder followed by Robitussin brand on the second, and so on. This cold medicine ladder was a red ladder – Bloody from the marketing warfare that was taking place as each brand fought for a better position.
Now here is where a positioning strategy comes into play. The creators of NyQuil saw an opportunity to create a new ladder, a new market segment to be called “night time cold medicine”. The night time cold medicine ladder was a blue ladder – blue like the ocean, wide open and competitor free. (think ebay’s online auction ladder or Twitter’s micro-blogging ladder – both were original brand blue ladders). Blue ladders represent new marketing segments that are separate from older red ladder origins.
NyQuil invented the “night time” ladder and claimed the first rung followed by zero competition on the rungs below. But they also did something even more powerful. In effect, they re-positioned all of the red ladder brands as “for day time use” … only NyQuil was “for night time use”.
This positioning strategy was so effective that NyQuil still occupies the first rung on the “night time cold medicine ladder” even today. (Note that the original blue night time ladder has become a red ladder as competitors have launched their own night time products over the past decades)
My purpose here is to illustrate how consumer product branding works, to provide a mental picture so career branders can apply the principles and the methodology to create their own brands. The goal is to have each career brander determine what their red ladder will look like, to choose the words that define the red ladder they currently occupy along with their competition.
How do you create your specific career segment “red ladder”? The first thing to understand about your red ladder is you get to choose it. And by choose it, I mean there are many potential red ladder segments you could credibly place yourself on. The challenge is to narrow your selection to your absolute best opportunity.
To illustrate, let’s create a hypothetical story of career brander John Webber. John is in the biomedical industry. He has 15 years of solid marketing experience working for several biomedical companies in the Western states. John has many options when choosing a description for a red ladder segment that will work for him. For example, John can pick from several geographic areas, particularly from Washington, Utah or California. He can pick from several job titles such as Director of Web Marketing, VP of Marketing or Senior Marketing Manager (his current job title). He can pick company size from start-up, small, medium or large corporation. His criteria will probably include these basic selections plus additional qualifiers based on John’s situation.
At first, John was leaning towards the Greater Salt Lake City area, Director of Web Marketing for a small-medium sized biomedical company (from $20 million to $100 million in sales). But after further research and reflection, John has decided to describe his red ladder segment as being in the Greater San Diego area, VP of Marketing for a biomedical start-up or small growing company (under $10 million in sales). After conducting some more extensive research, John has determined there are 30 companies that meet his criteria and an average of four key executives per company he should be targeting, making his narrow target only 120 individuals. He also estimates there are approximately twenty likely viable job competitors for the next available “VP of Marketing” position with one of these thirty companies.
So what strategic position does John own on the red ladder he has created? Right now he is in the middle of the pack – perhaps the 10th rung out of the 20 rungs on his segmented red ladder. However, John does have something that is unique, something that could be the basis for a strong differentiating positioning strategy. In addition to his degree in marketing, John holds a degree in mathematics, he’s a “math guy”. He has a talent for math and even follows the world of mathematics as a hobby.
Why is this significant? CEO’s are looking for marketing people with mathematics talent to help advance their web-based marketing programs. Understanding the complexities and subtleties of mathematics when applied to the design and ongoing efforts in building a web presence is key to success in the 21st century. Analytics, matrix studies, visitor tracking and database management are all significant math elements of the web world. And these CEO’s typically view marketing people as having less math ability than their financial executive counterparts. Indeed through some additional research, John has confirmed this is a valid basis for his positioning strategy.
John selects “biomedical marketing guy who is also a math guy” as the segment description for his blue ladder. And by doing so, John has in effect re-positioned all other “red ladder” VP of Marketing job candidates as “not math guys”. John will claim the first rung on the “math guy” ladder, without a single job competitor on the rungs below.
So what’s next? John will create a plan to launch his brand. He will be targeting his selected audience in some ways that are similar to the way a consumer products brand manager would launch a new product, but also in ways that are unique. John will not be creating an advertising campaign. Rather, he will focus on using networking and social media websites. John will have two purposes in mind:
- He will build content that clearly illustrates and confirms his blue ladder positioning. Content in the form of articles, blog writing, reviews and commentary, white papers, hosted video and podcasts – in other words any and all of the available formats to create original content.
- Once John has created great content, he will distribute it through all networking methods available, one-to-one meetings, group meetings, emails and through social media networking.
Overtime, John will become more and more known by his self branding label “also a math guy”. When he communicates with his target executives, he will restate and reinforce his position. For example, when attending an industry conference or trade show, John will take every opportunity to state his “also a math guy” handle when talking with his peers.
Eventually John will have a moment of great personal satisfaction and confirmation when one of his peers introduces him to another by using his positioning claim, “Sam, I would like to introduce you to John Webber, the marketing and math wizard”.
So now the question becomes, what does your Red Ladder look like?
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As a follow up to our feature article “Red Ladder/Blue Ladder” we have created a non-narrated slide show that highlights the main points in the article. Please click below:
Career Branding
Contact: mycareerbranding@gmail.com
