Have you heard about the 4Ps in discussions on marketing? Of course, you have. I can already sense shudders among my dear beloved readers. Not to worry. This article is not another one of those “Death By PowerPoint” lectures that talks about product, price, promotion, and place. Speaking of these four Ps, a lot of marketing professors, students as well as practitioners credit this framework to my friend Philip Kotler. In reality, it was Jerry McCarthy who first spoke of the four Ps when discussing the domain of marketing. More about Togel Singapore
The 4P framework I would
like to discuss is “Property Positioning for Profitable Performance.” With the competition in the gaming industry
intensifying, how you position your property could make the difference between
success and failure, life and death, growth and stagnation. In making such bold
claims, I may be getting ahead of myself. Let us first define what we mean by
positioning. Quite simply, a brand position is the place your brand occupies in
the mind of your target market relative to competitive offerings. In deciding
which newspaper to read, which tomato ketchup to have with fries, which car to
drive, and which casino to frequent, all customers use their “perceptual maps,” plot diagrams in the
head representing the perceptions of positions of the various brands they are
aware of. If a customer is buying a toothpaste in a supermarket, her mental map
will tell her to buy Crest if she is concerned about cavities, and Close-Up if
she values fresh breath.
I have asked the following
question of casino marketing directors and general managers scores of times, “What is your property’s positioning statement?” Many times, my question
is greeted with a look of baffled embarrassment, particularly on the part of
executives at some of the smaller casinos. Yet, positioning is as critical to
your marketing program as your company’s mission statement to its survival and future
direction.
Your casino’s brand position
represents the key feature, benefit, or image that it stands for in the
collective psyche of your target market. Al Reis and Jack Trout, widely
acknowledged as the pioneering gurus of positioning write, “Positioning starts with a
product. A piece of merchandise, a service, a company, an institution, or even
a person. Perhaps yourself. But positioning is not what you do to a product.
Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is you position
the product in the mind of the prospect.”
Positioning encompasses the
central idea that captures your brand’s meaning and distinctiveness vis-à-vis competitive
offerings. It is your positioning that forms the basis of developing all
successful marketing communications. It tells you who to target, what to say,
and what media and message vehicles to use in delivering your message. In their
highly acclaimed book, Counter-Intuitive Marketing, Clancy and Krieg (2000)
argue that from both a strategic as well as a tactical perspective, the
positioning statement should be a short one, even a word. It should forcefully
convey the message “you want to imprint in the minds of customers and prospects.” It gives the customer a
reason to patronize your brand; it underscores how your brand is different
from, and superior to, the competition.
In his article recently
posted on the MarketingProfs.com Website, “The Positioning Statement: Why To Have One
Before You Start Communicating,” Ford Kanzler writes that a well-crafted
positioning statement should be based on answers to seven essential questions:
Who you are?
What business you’re in?
Who you serve?
What does the target
market that you serve need?
Against whom do you
compete?
What’s different about your business?
What unique benefit does
the customer derive from your product or service?
Answers to these questions
should be based on collective inputs from all managers who are interested and
involved in key company activities—the CFO, CEO, and VPs of marketing, sales,
and customer service. If you are a casino-hotel, then both the hotel side as
well as the casino side of the business needs to be involved in this exercise.
And do not forget your prospective customers when it comes to providing inputs,
but more about it later. The desired result is a series of crisp positioning
statements and supporting messages that reflect the current reality of your
business and act as a guide in moving the company towards its “sought after, achievable,
differentiated position.”
Typically, you can position
your property along one or more of the following dimensions: price/quality,
product-mix attributes, product user, product usage, product class,
competition, and symbol or icon. Regardless of the dimensions chosen, the
positioning statement should, ideally, result in a strong, clear, and
consistent image of your property in comparison with your competitors. This
will allow for product differentiation through a brand image. Meaningful
differentiation will, in turn, translate into brand loyalty, which means a
greater share of customer wallet in your targeted market.
Positioning starts out with
a declaration to your customer, which then becomes a reality or falsehood in
her mind through accumulated experience. For the declaration to become a
well-imprinted reality, periodic reinforcement through marketing communication
efforts is essential. Positioning thus constitutes the backbone of your
marketing strategy.
Price/Quality: Many buyers
equate high price with high quality. In the casino parlance, this may equate
with prices the casino charges for its hotel rooms, or the table minimum for
bets. Caesar’s
Palace and Las Vegas Hilton probably have established this position among Las
Vegas gamblers.
Product-Mix/Attributes: “Good food specials and
buffet,” and “good entertainment in the
bars,” are
examples of positioning along attributes of the casino entertainment provider.
Circus-Circus and the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas could be positioned
along these lines.
Product User: The
representative user of a product can also be used to position a brand. The Hard
Rock Hotel and Casino seems positioned as a casino for “the guest seeking a unique, hip and exciting
experience.”
Product Usage: A product
may be positioned on the basis of the way in which it is typically used. The
Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia brags about its “world class shopping and dining,” and its “luxurious and indulgent
accommodation.” This message conveys that Crown is not just a casino -- it offers more
by providing the amenities that are usually available at a top-notch luxury
resort.
Product Class: It is
sometimes possible to position a brand against another product or product
class. The Stratosphere in Las Vegas uses the following copy in promoting its
wedding chapel, “Imagine taking your vows of eternal love high amongst the clouds in a
chapel so unique, your family and friends will talk about it for years.
Situated 800 feet above the Las Vegas Strip in the Stratosphere Tower, your
chapel is higher than any other in the entire country.” In so doing, the property (or a specific
component thereof) is positioned against chapels and function halls, not
casinos. Another example of product class positioning is the way in which
casinos in Queensland, Australia position themselves against the various pubs
and RSL clubs, “Our slots pay more, it’s the law.”
Competition: Comparing,
either directly or indirectly, a brand to its competition is another form of
product positioning. In a recent lead article in Gambling, Michael Shackleford
provides a comprehensive and credible comparison of Las Vegas reel slot
returns. The Palms Casino had the highest payout on nickel slots — 93.42%
against a median of 91.7% payout. Palms Casino could use these statistics in
positioning itself against other casinos in Vegas.
Symbol or Icon: Companies
sometimes use a symbol or an icon to position themselves in the minds of
consumers. Over time, this symbol can become synonymous with the company or
brand. Thus, the “golden arches” have come to symbolize McDonalds and “big blue” is tantamount to IBM. Paris Las Vegas uses the
Eiffel Tower as its icon in all its marketing communication, even on the
shampoo bottles in its hotel rooms. The hope is that with the passage of time,
most consumers will have a clear image of the casino by merely seeing the
symbol.
In choosing which dimension
or dimensions will be used for positioning, the casino should first identify
the differences that might be established in relation to competition. However,
merely identifying the differences is not enough. The company needs to isolate
the most powerful differentiators from the perspective of the target market.
Once isolated, these differences then need to be forcefully communicated to
prospective customers. The image the company strives to create in the minds of
the target market needs to be constantly fortified with the use of symbols,
through written and audio-visual media, and through the physical atmosphere of
the property.
Let us now look at the three
common errors in positioning: confused positioning, under-positioning, and
over-positioning. Confused positioning arises due to an uncertain mental image
in the minds of customers due to multiple claims and/or frequent repositioning
on the part of the casino. For example, a casino cannot position itself as “a casino for locals” one day and as “a good place for foreign
traveler” the
next. Such contradictory claims are bound to result in confused positioning.
Under-positioning is said
to occur when your customers cannot identify anything special about your brand.
Such perceived lack of differentiation is often the result when the
differentiators chosen for positioning are not valued enough by the customer or
are not forcefully communicated to the customer. This was probably the case
with the Claridge Casino Hotel in Atlantic City.
Over-positioning results
when a company positions itself too narrowly, resulting in the buyers having
too constricted a picture of the brand. Fewer customers will then be attracted
to the marketer’s offerings. For example, if a casino positioned itself solely on the
basis of its “good
check cashing services,” it would probably be over-positioning itself.
As the needs of companies,
competitors, and – most importantly – consumers evolve over time, your brand position may also warrant
changes. This process of creating a new image for an established brand in
consumers’ minds
is called repositioning. It involves changing people’s existing attitudes and beliefs, and is
therefore more costly and more difficult than positioning a new product.
Periodic assessment of your brand’s position vis-à-vis the competition will indicate whether you
need to embark on an expensive and risky repositioning exercise.
Repositioning begins with
as assessment of the brand’s current position. A decision then needs to be made on the desired
position the company wishes to own for the brand. An analysis of the
competitors who may be strongly embedded in this position is then carried out
so as to assess the chances of repositioning success. Factors such as the
aspirant’s
monetary resources, tenacity, and creative strategy are also weighed in to
predict the success of repositioning efforts.
Finally, one last
authoritative observation about positioning. Recall that positioning is the
place your brand occupies in the minds of your customers. When it comes to
deciding the dimensions on which to position your casino, the best source you
can possibly turn to is your target market. Al Reis and Jack Trout observe "The
average mind is already a dripping sponge that can soak up more information
only at the expense of what is already there. Millions of dollars have been
wasted trying to change people's minds… Once a mind is already made up, it's almost
impossible to change it." If you want to come up with a short list of
effective and relatively inexpensive positioning statements, the minds of your
prospects may be the best place to begin! Here you will find treasures of
product benefits and imagery associated with various brands that your customers
already believe and accept. Your chances of successful positioning or
repositioning will be significantly improved if you can understand how the
various brands are stacked on those “little ladders” in the heads of your target market. This can
only be achieved through market research.
Now that you know my 4P
Framework, it is your turn to let me know what your casino’s positioning statement is. Let’s hear your justification
of why you believe the current positioning to be the best.
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