Goal dilution: why we desperately need to focus our brand positioning

The second half of the last century, in the world corner where I was born, experienced an astonishing economic progress.

An unprecedented well-being allowed many people to access for the first time a lot of consumer products, from food to appliances, from clothing to furniture, from automotive to entertainment.

It was an age of proactiveness and optimism, full of deep political and social contradictions, but nevertheless driven to a better future.

It was an age of "gigantism": people had to buy more and more. Stores and supermarkets had to grow more and more, until they merged into colossal and all-embracing shopping malls.

Companies had to continuously expand their offerings, creating brand and line extensions.

The side effect was (also) a huge confusion.

How relevant is a unique selling proposition

Ironically, when we present many products, many services, many skills, we risk reducing their perceived quality.

The concept is not new: already in the 1940s, the American advertiser Rosser Reeves conceptualized the “unique selling proposition” - a single, strong trait, relevant to customers, which sets brands, products and services apart from competitors.

A single strong trait: Reeves was already inviting to focus on a singular differentiating feature, so as to not confuse the audience and establish a believable and coherent brand identity.

The key, now as then, is to be unique - or at least to be perceived as such, thanks to a value proposition easy to understand, assimilate and remember.

In this regard, the considerations of advertisers Al Ries and Jack Trout, who developed the concept of brand positioning in the 1970s, are still meaningful.

When claiming too many goals is counterproductive

The need to focus is also suggested by empirical research, which confirms decades of hands-on experience in advertising.

In a 2007 study, Ying Zhang and Ayelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago and Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland noticed that an action pursuing multiple goals is less trustworthy than an action pursuing only one goal.

The 97 participants in the experiment read excerpts from medical papers promoting good habits such as doing aerobics, eating tomatoes or giving up caffeine.

Each excerpt associated these habits with either one goal (heart health) or two (heart health and strong bones).

When the goals were two, the perceived effectiveness of the action decreased between 5 and 10%.

Example:

• I recommend you go jogging, because it improves heart health and strengthens bones
• I recommend you go jogging, because it improves heart health

In the latter sentence, the action of jogging will probably be perceived as more effective in relation to improving heart health, just because the set goal is only one.

Similarly, a cleanser presented as great for bathroom and kitchen will be perceived as less performing than a cleanser presented as great for the bathroom only.

This regardless of the real qualities of the product (which maybe is really good for both bathroom and kitchen).

Hence researchers spoke of "goal dilution": increasing the objectives means diluting them. A bit like adding water to wine...

The emblematic case history of Google

Speaking of brand focus, Google is an eloquent case history: do you remember the search engines of twenty years ago?

The landscape was varied and the main search engines (MSN, Yahoo!, Altavista, AOL...) were portals full of the most disparate content: news, games, e-mail and messaging services, job postings, stock quotes...

And then, somewhere at the top, a search box popped up.

It seemed like a good thing and probably was for some time: in the early days of internet, users needed an access point to the new boundless digital prairies.

Then Google came and knocked competitors out: a bare page with a search box and little else. All focused on one goal.

Surely this unequivocal positioning contributed to make Google a reliable and recognizable landmark among search engines.

However, it did not prevent Mountain View from conquering other sectors: emails, web browsers, videosharing, smartphones, blogging; but they did it through new brands with their peculiar identities: Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Android, Blogger...

Twenty years later, the Google home page remains clear and essential. Even more minimal.

They have never forgotten their focus, unlike other companies that in fact got hurt.

Standing out for a specific mission

This logic also permeates the world of mobile apps: a crowded world where each app must stand out for a specific function.

What good would a generic app be? How would it emerge from the crowd, without a well-defined identity and purpose?

The success of Instagram and YouTube can also be explained in this way: there are plenty of sites and apps to share photos and videos.

Instagram and YouTube, however, focus solely on photos and videos, becoming an identifiable reference in their respective sectors.

We may share our birthday photos on Facebook and Twitter - but Instagram seems born exactly for that kind of stuff.

With the pragmatism typical of advertisers, John Pearce, one of the founders of the historic British agency CDP, explained goal dilution through a plain metaphor: if they throw you one tennis ball at a time, you will be able to grab it.

If they throw you five or six balls simultaneously, however, you will be in enormous trouble.

A lesson to consider also in communication strategies and advertising campaigns: a different message for each product benefit should clear things up.

The same principle is applied by many web and mobile interfaces: each screen shows users one message at a time, one choice at a time, one step at a time.

Unilever and their quest for clarity

Returning to brand positioning: does all this mean companies cannot expand their offering without fueling confusion?

Not at all: a very common solution is to develop different brands for different products, keeping them carefully distinct.

This is the case of Google or the multinational Unilever, which sells a huge array of consumer goods: drinks, ice creams, condiments, frozen or ready-to-eat foods, detergents, cosmetics, deodorants, toothpastes...

In this dense constellation, each brand has its own positioning: products such as Algida ice creams, Lipton tea, Mentadent toothpastes or Knorr stock cubes each have their identity, without overlapping.

Probably many people do not even link these brands to Unilever. And why should they? They care about products, not marketing policies.

To get it, imagine an alternative scenario where Algida ice creams, Lipton tea, Mentadent toothpastes and Knorr stock cubes share the same brand.

Imagine a single macro-brand encompassing every product category: Unilever ice creams, Unilever tea, Unilever toothpaste, Unilever stock cube. How confusing, isn't it?

What about our personal branding?

This logic also applies to personal branding.

A complex and varied professional identity, for example, can mean versatility and a wide range of skills and experiences, but specialists are usually perceived better than generalists.

When having a specific need, we do not go to our general practitioner but prefer a professional who has been dedicated for years to our particular problem.

This is why it may not be worth diluting our LinkedIn profiles with a disturbing keyword stuffing.

The illusion / obsession of pleasing everyone can lead us off track.