Why over-positioning undermines?

An article by Yasir Masood Afaq

Ohh my God, can you please switch the channel, I just cant stand these commercials
anymore. An unprecedented irritation was self evident on my friends face whom I was hosting
after his long hours connected flights. Why so ? I asked with echoing of applauding comments
for these Ufone TV commercials which I heard from a range of audiences. I enjoyed these
commercials thoroughly when I watched them sitting in lounge awaiting my next flight. But the
frequency with which these ads were repeated on the TV (which was CCTV for sure), I felt
repulsive because enough gets, at times, more than enough. Riddle was solved. The packaged
program of those CCTVs in Airport Lounges was packed with irrationally frequent repetition of
these award winning ads (ref. latest PAS awards) reminding me Special Eid Transmissions of PTV
a decade ago repeating Tender Cigarette or Baho Soap commercials zillion times in a loop
during so called commercial breaks. The actual program used to appear as program break
during commercials telecast.
It led me to a fundamental question of media research i.e. whats the correlation between
frequency & reach. The Airport Lounge or Daewoo Bus service CCTV commercial program
packages simply signs out a negative correlation as the higher frequency caused low reach
owing to diminishing impact of the message. If I bring the same question in the realm of
branding than the question will be if over-positioning leads to better brand equity. No will be
the answer if we avoid deductive reasoning or rely on common sense only. Prior to jumping
on etiology and remedy of over-positioning, I would try to draw scenarios which define it:
a. Targeting a niche, developing and relaying the entire communication to address that
niche without any slice for others
b. Claiming more than it actually delivers. Abusing the art of exaggeration the way it gets
obvious
c. Over killing: in terms of unnecessary repetition with too frequent exposures on
multimedia
d. Establishing brand/service as premium one with correlates of being high priced and
exquisite when its not entirely so.
e. Reciprocating competitors positioning only with a fixation of counter offer or
emulation.
Needless to say, positioning is the foremost lesson a new business graduate learns from
Marketing Majors courses in their business schools. Why does it turn into over-positioning
when paradigm is put into practice? Everyday tea whitener positioned itself for the executive
who drives back to home in a luxurious car and gets rid of his tiredness when his gorgeous wife
presents her a cup of tea with everyday. A nice presentation to address the highest end of
society but it deprived this brand of the room for expansion to those SECs whereby the
frequency of taking tea is much higher and with a greater sense of festivity attached to it.
Consequently, Tarang took the leverage of this lapse and tapped those tiers which are the peak
of a normal distribution curve of Pakistani society.
Then it brings me to another rat race of none other than laundry detergents. The premium one
takes refuge in an epic loving relationship of granny and her grandson and a hyperrational
slogan of dagh to achay hotay hai. Others are still in competition with each other engaging
housewives with two equally dirty pieces of cloth being washed with own and competitors
detergent. And the result is . Wow! You know. The change of the anchor (from Adnan Siddiqui
to Tariq Aziz and vice a versa) is the only constant in these over-positioned communications. If
not a testimonial based competition, then wives of the chauhdaries of the village to the
supervisors of the factory are found preoccupied with the tidiness of their husbands attire. Till
this point, its not over positioned. But when, repetitively, the same theme is used as thesis and
antithesis with colloquial sloganeering by the competitors, it becomes redundantly over-
positioned. It discards every other who is deprived of wifes special attention to the details of
his attire. And what about wives themselves? This patriarchal over-positioning of detergents
never talked about cloths freak better halves.
Undoubtedly, targeting a niche for brand positioning is a critically acclaimed strategy. But when
it gets overboard with socially unapproved utility of texting, e-socializing or late night calling
by Djuice, it may rightly be termed as over-positioning. Yes, no one is oblivious of the lifestyle of
our teenagers but why to make it repetitively too obvious for the sake of commercial gains
only? As a matter of fact, the over-positioning is based on oblivion towards the generation gap
and socio-religious identity which is still a prime attribute of our society.
Whats the etiology of this over-positioning? Simply, its a disconnect between brand managers
and a multitude of realities surrounding a common man and woman of Pakistan. When brand
image overpowers the dynamics of product category and its usage by various target groups in
the cognitive schemes of brand managers, over-positioning gets embodied in communication.
When long lasting strategic brand positioning is replaced with adhoc sales promotional
approach, over-positioning is committed. Instead of opting for proactive stature, when reaction
to competitors propagation takes place, over-positioning creeps in. And the remedy lies in
connecting dots and internalizing locus of control to bank upon the strength which comes from
within. Seeing beyond the visible from the window just beside the cozy cubical will help brand
mangers bridge the gap; a gap between own cognitions and consumers aspirations and
limitations. The media planner and owner who sold and bought (respectively) the bulk
exposures of fantastic creative need to understand that ROI is not only Return on Investment
rather it may also stand for Relevance, Originality and above all Impact.