Know-How Exchange : Branding

Romona,

Generally speaking, the position statement and tag line have to be very similar. And I'm sure many people confuse the two of them for the same this. The way I think of them is this:

The position statement is a part of the strategy and communicates to those inside the company the any and all of the following:

• Placement within a market segment


• Placement of the product relative to other products categories and application


• Placement versus competitors' products


• Placement of the product in terms of features and benefits

The position statement is critical to have in place before the marketing "production" work is completed because it ties everything together. A position statement is not a tagline because the audience is different; for a position statement, you are addressing company stakeholders versus a tagline is addressing customers. The language and method of communications of both are usually different because both sets most likely are motivated and affected differently and by different media.

If you remember Miller Lite's tagline "Less filling...tastes great " - you can be sure their position statement was a little more complex - something like Miller Lite is aimed at beer drinkers who want to cut the calories but maintain the taste. Versus Budweiser, Miller Lite has a cleaner taste and the same number of calories. With is positioning statement, the admen can take off doing commercials and the stockholders can understand how Miller plans to increase the company value with this brand.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

Romona,
First a definition of value proposition: The value statement is the a statement of the customer benefits in terms of their impact to the customer's way of life - generally, but not necessarily in economic terms. The value proposition usually makes reference to the competitors' solutions or alternate technology solutions. For instance, a value proposition for those bags you use in your drier for dry cleaning: Save $20 in dry cleaning bills less the $10 cost - for a net value proposition of $10. You could stretch this value proposition to include the cost of gas to go to the dry cleaners, your time, and the time you have to wait for them to clean the products for some less tangible value.

So, the relationship between the positioning statement, the tagline, and the value proposition: You can think of the positioning statement as the superset of all of these. It contains information that will go into the tag line and information about the value proposition. The tagline is a "translation" of the position statement into words that will have maximum effect on the customer. The value proposition part of the position statement and quantifies the derived customer benefits.

I hope this clarifies the three for you.

Wayde