Questioning viability of $150 annual U.S. Marketing spend.

Verse Group releases a groundbreaking paper challenging “positioning” as the cornerstone of marketing. New research provides convincing evidence that brand stories are more effective.

Brand positioning grew from the out-dated theory that a brand should own one idea in a person’s mind. It assumed decision-making is simple, linear, and fact-driven. The study shows decisions are actually driven by a
complex interplay of emotions, experience, and sensations. Brand stories work better than positioning because they engage people on all of those levels.

Abandoning positioning in favor of brand stories improves marketing effectiveness and efficiency. U.S. companies spend over $150 billion a year for advertising, branding and marketing. The lost opportunity costs of
ineffective marketing likely amount to billions of misspent dollars. A poor brand strategy is like carrying an underperforming asset on the balance sheet.

“Positioning may be the most misguided branding notion in 30 years,” says Randall Ringer, co-founder of Verse Group. “The basic premise of positioning was that a brand had to be reduced to one fact. That has now been proven to be simply wrong.”

“Brand stories work because they engage people. Stories reach right into the heart,” says Michael Thibodeau, co-founder of Verse Group.

To download report CLICK on link below (Adobe Acrobat Reader required):
http://www.versegroup.com/news_items/VG_RadicalReport_111207_final.pdf>