How can the satisfier positioning model be better?

Question:  We’re not at all clear about your MRx column on July 17, 2015.  Your MRx was for us “not to remain a prisoner to the UAI’s (usage, attitude, image) priority value plus differentiator positioning model” but extend to “the satisfier positioning model.”   You cited three cases to prove your point.  These were Volvo’s successful positioning on silence-inside-the-car, Motolite battery’s “torture test” positioning, and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo’s doesn’t-hurt-eyes positioning.

You did not explain how exactly even just one of these examples worked out as a “winning positioning” for its brand and did so better than the popular UAI-based positioning model.  That’s the model we’ve used for years and it worked and has been working for our brand in the highly competitive industry we belong to.

We’re ready to try your prescribed alternative satisfier positioning model if you can please explain how exactly it can work better than the UAI-based positioning model that has worked so well for our brand.

Answer: Given our limited space, let’s take up just one of the three cases.  That’s the case of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo for whose winning satisfier positioning I’ve published in a professional journal.

At the time of its market entry, that brand was a latecomer shampoo brand in an industry with more than 36 participating brands.  A series of FGDs (focus group discussions) identified some eight to nine product values that shampoo users considered important to them.  I mentioned eight to nine because after the four-group FGDs, I wasn’t so sure if I would include the 9th in the subsequent validating quantitative positioning survey.

The eight shampoo values or attributes that shampoo users cited in the FGDs as important to them were: (1) cleans hair, (2) easily lathers, (3) leaves hair soft, (4) leaves hair shiny, (5) leaves hair fragrant, (6) does not cause dandruff, (7) removes dandruff, and (8) leaves hair manageable.  The 9th attribute that the brand people found “rather weird” was the shampoo value of “does not hurt eyes.”   Brand wanted to exclude it from the quantitative study because as an articulate brand man said: “Who in his or her right mind would say that’s a priority value?”  But it was the country manager who was intrigued by the attribute and instructed market research to include it in the validating quantitative survey.  However, he instructed Market Research to modify the positioning questions so that the attribute is “given its full chance to manifest its positioning potential.”

Market Research went back to the FGD verbatim responses with particular reference to the “does not hurt eyes” attribute.  One of the things that the review found was that the attribute was associated with no brand except Johnson Baby Shampoo.  In consulting with the product development people, apparently because they knew that Johnson Baby Shampoo was meant for babies and mothers already warned that because their babies were restless the preferred shampoo was one that won’t hurt eyes if by a very likely accident the shampoo found its way to the baby’s eye area.  What product development did was to substantially reduce the eye-hurting shampoo ingredient but making sure the product still did its shampooing job.

In the validating quantitative positioning survey that followed, the usual UAI questions about priority importance ratings of the nine shampoo values were still asked including the differentiation rating of selected brands on those priority shampoo attributes.  But additional questions were also included.  These questions asked mothers using shampoo on their babies how the 9 attributes were important to them, and to what extent they expected to find each of those attributes.  If an attribute is unexpected and they did not find it in the shampoo brand they were using, how would they feel about that, and if they did find it, again how will that make them feel.

There were three highly useful findings from the data analysis.  First, there were two attributes that mothers said each was for them a “must” or a “minimum requirement.”  These two were “cleans hair” and “easily lathers.”  These made consumer sense.  Mothers who were probed said something like: “If it doesn’t clean hair or doesn’t easily lather, then that’s not a shampoo.”  The second set of useful result was the most insightful.  It related to the “does not hurt eyes” attribute.  Mothers rated this attribute as something they don’t expect at all.  However, if a shampoo indeed “doesn’t hurt my baby’s eyes when it gets there, then that’s my baby’s shampoo and I’d be delighted to have it.”

In a subsequent product testing of Johnson Baby Shampoo among mothers, it was the only brand that perfectly fit into that “satisfier” value or attribute.  It made the brand stand out above all other brands and won its target market share.

So there you are.  That’s how the satisfier positioning works especially in a highly competitive product category.  If you told us what brand you have been researching for its positioning via the priority value plus differentiator positioning model and provided us the data, we could have diagnosed your case and validated for you to what extent that UAI-based positioning model still made that positioning a winner.  Better yet, if you give us the chance to also apply our satisfier positioning questions, we could have analyzed and compared the results versus those from your UAI-based positioning model and found for you which one gave the superior competitively advantageous positioning.

Keep your questions coming.  Send them to me at [email protected].