Road map jealousy

That sound you’ve been hearing recently is the thud made by marketing and communications people as they smack their heads against the nearest wall, table, or other available hard surface.

The reason for all this simultaneous skull-denting? Call it “road map jealousy.”

Yes, in the space of a mere handful of weeks, the Bush Administration has demonstrated the principles of successful positioning at near warp speed. Their “Road Map” for peace in the Middle East has gone from being a term advanced exclusively by Administration officials and reported in quotes (a la “Road Map”) to one that flows freely in the sound bites coming from every single source even remotely connected to the process.

No matter which side of the political aisle you sit on, it’s been fascinating to watch the pace with which this term has become part of the lexicon among those involved in this seemingly centuries-old peace process, and the journalists reporting on their work.

In the much less dangerous world of marketing and communications, professionals can only dream of having such rapid, widespread acceptance of the positions they seek to stake out with target audiences. We painstakingly sweat the details for each strategy and every tactic, tweaking timing, adjusting art, and fiddling with language – all in the hopes of generating measurable movement of the proverbial “needle.”

And while we may be wildly successful in generating that movement – and in moving our products or services out the door in the process – getting the kind of universal acceptance and usage of our own version of the Road Map positioning seems almost too far-fetched to even dream about. (After all, the world doesn’t hang on our every word.)

Even so, this case study does offer some common sense positioning lessons:

• Speak in their language, not yours. In their efforts to differentiate, marketing and communications professionals often fall victim to using a $10 word – or concocting a word out of thin air – when something common would work more effectively. Everyone knows what you do with a road map (insert your own “men don’t ask directions” joke here), so it made it easy for those involved to use the expression, and for journalists to latch onto the concept. Remember: The objective of positioning is to sell a product, a service, or an idea, not to teach vocabulary to your target audiences.
• Engage advocates early. True positioning isn’t what you say, but what your target audiences say. Get them to speak your language, and you’ve succeeded. When high profile leaders became enthused about the approach, they took on the language of the Administration and began using “Road Map” in their discussions of the process. It gave the term – and the work it defined – immediate credibility.
• Embrace it and use it yourself. Think it’s just happenstance that you never hear the word “Plan” used as a synonym for Road Map? Think again. It’s clear that “the P word” has been banished from the Administration’s language in an effort to clearly differentiate this approach from past peace efforts that have failed. That’s textbook positioning strategy.

The most interesting sidebar? Even though the process itself has bogged down, you aren’t reading headlines like “Road Map takes a wrong turn” – at least not yet. (Whether that’s a positioning issue, or proof that the liberal media isn’t so liberal anymore, can be the subject of your next water cooler conversation.)