Decoded, 2nd Edition

6From Positioning to Touchpoints: Bringing Value to Life

 

So far we have seen many facets of the implicit level of marketing, ranging from perception to motivated behaviour. In this chapter we will focus on how we can efficiently and effectively implement our goal-based strategy to create product experiences and communication. We will also explore how to judge whether an execution credibly fits this strategy.

Closing the implementation gap

When we summarize what we learned in Chapter 5, marketing appears, on the face of it, to be quite simple: we have to create a value proposition consisting of both explicit and implicit goals, link the implicit to the explicit goals, translate this proposition into signals that will activate mental concepts within the consumer, and then, if these mental concepts fit with the consumer's active goal better than those activated by competitors, they will buy our brand or product (see Figure 6.1).

There are two main barriers to more successful marketing: first, the strategy is not based on consumer goals, and second, the signals used to convey the value proposition do not activate the intended mental concepts and goals in the consumer's mind.

That appears to be fairly straightforward, but we all know how challenging it is to develop a compelling strategy and to implement it across all touchpoints. It can take months, dozens of meetings, and hundreds of hours to discuss the strategy alone. When it comes to implementing the strategy, the ...