Bud Light has saturated the market with their new positioning strategy: “Drinkability.” I want to address this because this, to me, is a poster-child for a bad positioning strategy. There are plenty of examples, both nationally and locally.

The goal of any marketing campaign is to differentiate itself from the competition. Tell your market how and why you’re different from the other guy so that they’ll buy your stuff. Unique Selling Proposition (or USP) is one theory that explains how to do this. A strong USP is supposed to have three components (1) it should make present a specific, tangible benefit, (2) it must be unique to that brand, and (3) it should inspire consumers to change.

“Drinkability” doesn’t mean any of these criteria. So why pick that word? Bottom line: “Drinkability” is a smoke & mirrors campaign. Bud Light is trying to edge in on Miller Lite’s position of “tastes great, less filling.” After all, “taste” and “healthy” are two very strong USP’s. The question is: will it work? All I can say is that Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their Consumerlings aren’t stupid.

Whenever I hear that someone’s primary goal is to “raise awareness” about their brand, I pause. Saying that your marketing strategy is designed to raise awareness is sort of like saying that your primary goal in exercising is to sweat…or that the primary goal of eating is to chew.

Awareness shouldn’t be viewed a goal. Awareness should be viewed as an effect…as in, for every cause, there’s an effect. When you advertise, consumers will become aware. But the real question is: what good is that awareness? What does that awareness achieve?

If you’ve been in business long enough, you’ve had to weather some storms. You’ve had to endure some attacks from old competitors, from blood-hungry startups, and from angry customers. Maybe, you’ve even had to defend yourself against your own screw-ups. Hey, it happens. But what is the best way to defend your brand? At one point or another, you’ve probably heard me say that “PR builds a brand, and advertising defends it.” Whenever I say this, I usually get a distant “ahh-ok” look from the listener…like they’re agreeing with me but don’t have a clue what I mean. For the most part, this statement is a very broad generalization, but a good starting point for a tactical discussion of brand defense.

It all comes down to the fact that some things are inherently interesting and some just…well…aren’t. In today’s market, if you want your product or service to be top-of-mind with your consumers, you need a story that will stick. A story that has to be retold ten times over before it takes hold isn’t really a very good story, now is it? So what will make your story stick?

Is aggressively marketing your startup company a requirement or a luxury? While many entrepreneurs pay lip service to the former, they don’t really believe it. If you want the truth, look at what they actually do. As crazy as it may seem, it’s common for entrepreneurs to overlook the need for major marketing investment from day one. “We’re just starting up,” they think. “We need to get on our feet and then we’ll have the money to invest in things like marketing and advertising.” But whether it’s old-fashioned meatloaf or brand new technology, no matter how good your product or service is, it won’t sell itself. If you can’t afford a marketing budget you can’t afford to open your doors.

As marketers, our job is to tell stories. The stories we tell are either believed or disbelieved by consumers. Presumably, you hire us because people tend to believe the story we tell more often than not. As humans, we don’t process facts, we process stories. Our brains operate much better when we tell ourselves a story and then make decisions based on how that story makes us feel.