Companies with new products often struggle to attract prospects because a key component is missing in their Positioning narrative.

That is? A Mind Entry device.

This helps a Positioning idea pierce the mind of the prospect and become hooked inside.

It’s particularly applicable for new ideas to get noticed and take hold. Ideas can’t exist in an intellectual vacuum devoid of context.

If they do, prospects struggle to make sense of them.

“How does this thing fit with what I know?”

There has to be an established mental reference to hook a new idea onto.

It’s like playing Buckaroo, but instead of delicately positioning a cowboy hat on a mule and hoping it doesn’t get violently rejected, it’s a game of positioning an idea somewhere adoptable on a mental structure of schema (units of knowledge) and perceptions.

Connecting them together cognitively like a lego brick.

I wrote about this recently, using early Salesforce as an example:

Salesforce

Above is a hypothetical Positioning Arrow framework for Salesforce during their innovator phase on the adoption curve. Right at the tip of the arrow is the Mind Entry component. This is the device to help penetrate an idea into the mind.

How so?

When Salesforce was founded the CRM category was dominated by hard-install software vendors. A company called Siebel was the poster child of the category.

Salesforce was different. It was entirely online from the prospect’s perspective, so the team built a new mental category to emphasise this idea called Cloud CRM.

Back then a Cloud CRM was not an obvious or intuitive idea like it is today. It was a foreign notion that had to be legitimised and subsumed in the prospect’s mind, using existing knowledge and perceptions as the hook.

To do that, Salesforce used Siebel as the mental anchor reference and designed a Mind Entry device positioning Siebel as the enemy.

They became the “anti-Siebel” and communicated this notion — using the ‘Ying and Yang effect’ to establish a position in the mind as the opposite.

This approach works cognitively because:

1. Siebel is an established mental idea.

2. Inversing the idea of Siebel creates a new set of mental properties.

3. Salesforce can claim this inversed set of properties as their idea and design it to their advantage.

By contrasting itself, Salesforce broke into the mind and piggybacked on the awareness and cognisance that Siebel had painstakingly built.

For the next Mind Entry example, let’s switch to a completely different company and era!

Pepsi

After Coca-Cola was successfully launched, copycat competitors bubbled up from everywhere using brand names like Carbo-Cola, Candy-Cola, Star-Cola, Prince-Cola, Koloko, and Dope.

There were hundreds of them!

But only one of them — Pepsi-Cola — emerged as a legitimate competitor to Coca-Cola. The rest fizzled away.

Why? Pepsi had the superior Positioning strategy.

Similar to Salesforce, Pepsi-Cola took an opposite position to Coca-Cola.

This was Pepsi’s Mind Entry device, anchoring itself as a clear alternative choice to the powerful mental file that was Coca-Cola.

How so?

In the 1930s Coca-Cola already had its iconic 6.5oz contour bottle. It was priced at 5 cents.

So, Pepsi-Cola launched a 12oz bottle at the same price point — 5 cents.

This size difference seems superficial as a differentiator. But, the difference in perception it created was profound. It divided the mind.

Coca-Cola was small and expensive. Pepsi-Cola was large and inexpensive.

Younger drinkers preferred quantity over quality and sweeter over less-sweet, which Pepsi-Cola delivered on vs. Coca-Cola.

As a result, Pepsi became the “younger person’s cola” and by inference repositioned Coca-Cola as an “older person’s cola.”

This proposition deeply resonated amongst cash-strapped kids during the Great Depression.

Then, things really took off. Walter Mack joined Pepsi as its President and kicked-off a series of ambitious marketing programs to attack Coca-Cola.

They launched an upbeat radio ad jingle anchoring their 12oz bottle idea against Coca-Cola with the line “twice as much for a nickel” — emphasising it was more modern, affordable, and fun.

"Worth a dime, costs a nickel" stated many ads in subsequent years, cleverly framing the 12oz Pepsi bottles as a steal rather than a budget offering.

In other words: in the same league as Coca-Cola, for half the price.

The brilliant part?

Coca-Cola could not move quickly to counter and neuter the move. Their hands were tied.

They couldn't increase the quantity unless they were willing to scrap a billion or so 6.5oz bottles. They couldn't cut the price because soft-drinks were widely dispensed in nickel machines.

Plus, their perfectly designed 6.5oz that fit the hand couldn't be scaled up to 12oz (unless your hand size is 'Incredible Hulk').

Coca-Cola felt that their bottle design was their greatest strength. They used it in every ad and even trademarked it. Pepsi-Cola turned that strength into a weakness.

The result?

A few years later, Pepsi shot ahead of the other cola copycats and emerged as the strong no.2 cola.

This was achieved with a limited advertising budget. In the first year, Pepsi's advertising budget was 4% of Coca-Cola's.

They continued to build their no.2 position and gain market share on Coca-Cola by hammering home their opposite Positioning.

By 1960, Pepsi had 40% of cola sales between the two companies. It popped.

It popped.

Declaring An Enemy

Do all Mind Entry devices need to take an opposite position to a strong competitor?

No. But, it’s a tried and tested methodology.

It falls under a broader strategic approach of declaring an enemy and anchoring oneself against it.

The enemy does not have to be a specific competitor, though:

• It could be an entire category of competitors, like Airbnb vs. hotels.

• It could be a pain point, like HelloFresh vs. meal planning.

• It could be an insecurity, like buying IBM vs. getting fired.

As a rule of thumb, I use the “three C’s” model. You are either Positioning against a Competitor, a Category, or a Context as the enemy.

Is declaring an enemy always the best approach, though? No.

Depending on the circumstances, it can be better to utilise a cooperative anchor than an enemy anchor.

What’s a cooperative anchor?

An anchor that you frame in a positive light to attach your idea onto.

For example: if you were to create a new ‘authentic salsa dip’ it may be more optimal to anchor this idea to Doritos — and piggyback on Doritos to gain traction in the mind — than it would be to declare Doritos salsa dip as the enemy.

📘 Playbook

Mind Entry

• Recognise the importance of a Mind Entry device in Positioning new products and their underlying ideas.

• Acknowledge that ideas need a mental anchor or reference point to be cognitively reconciled and adopted.

• Understand that contrasting with an established concept and perception can create a distinct position in the prospect's mind.

Identify The Anchor

• Map out a list of mental anchors — established competitors, categories, or pain points that can be contrasted against.

• Develop a hypothesis over which could be the most powerful to declare as the enemy.

• Learn the existing mental perceptions associated with this anchor.

Develop a Contrasting Position

• Calibrate a Positioning Arrow that clearly contrasts a product and its underlying idea from the identified anchor.

• Emphasise a unique point of view that sets the offering apart.

• Utilise the 'Ying and Yang effect' to establish a clear contrast in the minds of prospects. A natural opposite.

Create Cognitive Connections

• Develop messaging that builds an inversed perception to the anchor.

• Use simple, relatable language that resonates with prospects.

• Tap into the emotions associated with the anchor, whether it's frustration with a pain point or a perception of an established brand.

• Validate that messaging creates a cognitive link between the product and the anchor, making the idea more memorable and comprehensible.

Test and Refine

• Measure the effectiveness of the Mind Entry tactics.

• Test, test, test and refine.

• If tactics are ineffective, revisit the anchor hypothesis step and develop a new anchor hypothesis to test.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back in your inbox soon.

Martin 👋

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