Marketing - The Use of Positioning - Example #2 - Philips Electronics
When Dutch-headquartered Philips Electronics hired us to launch its 4000-series LCD projectors in the US, they were in the process of becoming the 37th player in the market-each one with a product almost completely indistinguishable from its 36 competitors in terms of features. The Philips product was not the brightest, nor the safest (it sometimes burst into flames), nor the lightest in weight, nor the least expensive; it had won no awards and had received almost no positive press.
However, when we interviewed the market, we found to our surprise and delight that none of this appeared to matter much. Those responsible for sourcing large numbers of LCD projects to support field sales forces were much more concerned about supporting the overall quality of the sales presentation. Their goal was to help make their sales teams more effective by helping them feel comfortable in a role (public speaking) that was well known to make people very UNcomfortable.
So we built a series of campaigns around the dynamics of a presentation. We showed how a Philips projector with its ultra-long bulb life, its vast range of plug-compatibility, etc. was much more likely to result in a warm, distraction-free presentation environment-on in which the presenter could concentrate on his audience-rather than himself and his equipment.
Over a 12-month period, we generated more than 20,000 leads from interested, qualified prospects, and distributed these leads to a network of professional audio-visual dealers. Sales started to roll in.
