Priscilla McKinney: I have with me today Dr. Tracy Tuten. She is the VP of qualitative research at Illuminosa radius company, and she is leading the qualitative practice there. We’ve had a lot of great conversations about what this means for brands, especially in the tech sector. And speaking of the tech sector, that’s where she has her expertise. So she has a PhD in marketing and all of this experience we’re going to get to talk about today, specializing in uncovering actionable insights for companies with this real focus on technology. She’s worked on everything from buyer journey research to jobs to be done, diary studies, shopper studies. I mean, you can get the picture here. She’s a real expert, but we’re going to talk about what she knows in terms of digital transformation success because of her experience with AI gaming, SAS products, cybersecurity and enterprise technology and on and on. So Tracy, welcome to the show.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Thank you so much, Priscilla. I am thrilled to be here. And it’s just a great opportunity for me to talk about things that I’m passionate about. I’ve been at the intersection of technology and marketing for longer than I care to admit, actually. And it’s just going to be a delight to talk with you today.
Priscilla McKinney: Well, awesome. You and I have a convergence of our expertise in that marketing side. We might have some good information, but what do we do with it? And why are we doing that with it, with companies, is because companies want a competitive advantage, right? They need to be able to understand how they can do better than the average bear in their own industry. And you know how to do that in the tech sector. So I love how we’re going to start with something a little bit overlapping in my world of marketing and your world. So let’s talk a little bit about that brand positioning because you and I have had a lot of conversations about this over time and it is a critical piece to understand but your focus on the tech industry means that you know why in the tech industry this positioning is so critical and kind of secondly, why is it so challenging for tech companies?
Dr. Tracy Tuten: And it is really challenging for tech brands. And that’s true whether those brands are focused on B2B markets or B2C markets. And it’s challenging because there’s so many powerful players in the market. It is a, you could almost say. For many of the categories that tech brands play in, it’s a somewhat cluttered market with many good options for prospective buyers. It’s also very complex. We’re talking about purchases, whether it’s B2B or B2C, that are high involvement purchases so they might be perceived as somewhat risky. It’s important that the buyers make the right decision and then it’s changing. It’s changing so rapidly like we can see, you know with all of the new AI tools and technologies that are coming to bear and so it is important that tech brands be able to communicate in the marketplace and to these customers and prospective buyers, what it is they stand for, why they should be in that consideration set.
Priscilla McKinney: One thing that you’ve written about a bit is about the dangers of emergent positioning. So explain to me what this is and why you feel that it is a trap for tech brands specifically.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: So classic positioning theory and strategy would tell us that winning brands are brands that are able to communicate a clear competitive advantage, a clear attribute that is deeply relevant to their target audience and with which they are better than and different from the competition. That gives them that voice in the marketplace. But what happens with many brands, not just tech brands, but I especially see it with tech brands, is that they fail to make that kind of engineered choice around a positioning strategy. And instead, what happens is… If the market is aware of your brand, the market will have associations about your brand and it may not be what you want it to be. It’s going to be built on their experiences, what they’ve heard in online reviews, what they’ve heard from their peer networks. It might be based on some advertising or other kinds of vague messaging. And in those situations, the brand is not in control of the associations that are ringing true in the minds of the buyers relative to how that brand competes in the marketplace.
Priscilla McKinney: That’s always making sense to me because the way I kind of phrase it is that people come to me and say, well, Priscilla, I don’t think I want to do advertising or marketing because you know, word of mouth is the best. And I’m like, okay, well, it can be the best all you want. But there’s a couple of things. Number one, how do you actually get people to open up their mouths? And to your point, when they do open their mouths, are you sure you know what they’re saying? Because it might not be the messages you were hoping for. This is just where I feel like you and I probably go to bed on Sunday nights, probably with some of the same fears and some of the same things keeping us up. This idea of, you know, just because we feel one way or we know that our product is the best, let’s say, it kind of doesn’t matter because what matters is in that mind of the consumer. But I want to stick on this subject of positioning because you’re such an expert on it. You use this term green flag when you talk about positioning. So tell us what you mean by that and why tech brands should care about finding their green flag.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: So the green flag is really the polar opposite of emergent positioning. So if we think about emergent positioning being like letting strangers build your dating profile, for instance, the green flag is engineered strategic positioning. It means that the brand systematically learns what associations do buyers in my target audience currently have about my brand? What are the associations they have about my competitors? What are the attributes that are deeply relevant to them when they are choosing which brand to buy for their next purchase and where can we win versus the competition. And that green flag is one claim that is significantly different, unique, strong compared to the competition and relevant to that target audience. And I say it’s a green flag because it is a competitive battlefield. You are at war. And so this is the flag that you stake on the hill that you know you can hold. You can win.
Priscilla McKinney: I love that. Okay, now you’ve done years and years of work. So now I’m going to put you on the spot and make you give me some examples. How have some companies done it well and how have some failed or maybe let’s just say less well.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Well, let me start just briefly by saying even companies that think they are developing a strong positioning strategy. They’re not following emergent positioning. They’re trying to position, but they still lose. What are they doing? Typically, I see three things, especially with tech brands. First, they might position on parity. If the competitors are good at something, they’ll say, we’re good at that too. Yeah, we’re also secure. We’re also scalable. We’re also able to prove ROI. Okay, well you can’t differentiate that way. The second thing that I see is them trying to position where they can’t win, trying to position where one of their competitors is already identified as superior on that attribute by the target audience. And the third thing that I see is kitchen sink positioning, trying to position on the entire value proposition instead of one critical claim that’s relevant and different. They try to say we’re all things. We’re scalable. We’re efficient. We’re secure. We can deliver this, this, and this. And that is too much. That is a diluted message. And you cannot win in the marketplace that way. But what you asked me was…
Priscilla McKinney: I’m sure when I ask you for these examples, because I am going to put you on the spot with them, but I’m sure that those are tough conversations going into the leadership because often the leadership, I’m not going to name CEOs. I’m sorry, I happened to be one. But sometimes we feel like we know better what it is and we get feeling like it’s risky to not say everything. And that’s where I think that kitchen sink comes in, in the very end. It’s like, they don’t know exactly what’s wrong. So they just want to try and mitigate risk everywhere and throw it all in there, not realizing that that action is what is creating more risk than anything. And I totally, I totally hear you on that, but yes, I want to hear some stories.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: So first off, let me say research is the antidote to that risk. Positioning strategies are not decisions that should be made in a boardroom based on internal alignment without understanding where you actually sit in the market in the minds of those buyers relative to the competition and without understanding how your competitors are positioning. So research gives you the information that you need to build what can ultimately be a green flag that helps you win in the market. Let me give you some examples. One of my favorite examples is ONTIC versus Resolver. These are both tech brands that compete in the corporate security space. Resolver has positioned itself as incident management. ONTIC, on the other hand, has positioned itself as proactive, protective intelligence. In doing this, ONTIC has basically redefined the corporate security category. It can not only own its flag, it can own the category because of this very forward thinking, proactive, positive position, leaving Resolver in the dust.
Priscilla McKinney: Wow. Okay. That’s even more than I bargained for in that story because that’s not just about you winning. You know, you’re talking all the time with people who are purchasing these enterprise solutions, not just winning that purchase, but talk about really changing the whole tenor of the conversations in the industry. Yeah.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Exactly. It’s like changing the paradigm of that category. Another example is Stripe versus Adyen. Stripe positions itself as the economic infrastructure of the internet. Adyen says it’s an end-to-end platform. Which one do you trust?
Priscilla McKinney: Yeah end-to-end platform to me seems a bit limiting you’re gonna put me on the spot here but with Stripe I’m thinking but everything like for me that’s a more real statement like the internet that is where I’m out, you know that this is kind of where I live in that either. That’s like, like, some total of, of like where your life lives anymore.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Economic infrastructure of the internet, just think of how powerful that position is. Right, right. So Stripe is aspirational for the buyers. If they need an economic engine, Stripe can provide that for them. Adyen, on the other hand, it’s functional. It’s a functional description of what it offers.
Priscilla McKinney: That’s the word. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Okay, those are some awesome examples. Can you tell me what you see in all of your experiences kind of where you see things going wrong? Like is there a common place that tech companies go wrong when they’re trying to engineer this positioning and plant that green flag?
Dr. Tracy Tuten: I think a lot of it boils down to not investing in the research they need to be able to make the right decisions. So that’s the first error that I see. The second mistake I see is that once you have identified the positioning strategy, you’ve identified the flag you are going to plant on the hill, it should align everything else that brand does. It aligns product strategy, it aligns the marketing strategy, it aligns the sales strategy. Every single piece across that portfolio should support the position, should reinforce. Yes, that’s what we’re about. That’s what we offer. This is why if the target, if the buyers want X and we offer X, this is why they choose us. And it constantly reinforces that position.
Priscilla McKinney: Okay. I love this. Now let’s bring this home back to the original reason why I asked you to come on this podcast. This podcast is about companies really figuring out what the next step is for them to have digital transformation success and no place is that more of a pain point than with tech companies, right? Their products are tech related and so when they go to market, they need to be tech related. All of their marketing needs to understand the tech side of the buyer and then to, your experience, you’re talking with those enterprise buyers, you know them very well. And so it kind of brings me back to the to the kind of you’re the doctor for the doctors right. That’s kind of the way I see it. You’re providing technical direction for these technical companies, right? So I guess I have to ask you that question the technology aspect of it is moving so fast as you mentioned in the very beginning and these are positioning statements about technical products. And so how are you really helping them uncover the right positioning in such a fast moving and highly competitive category? There is not another category that in this moment is moving so fast.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: And we could also go so far as to say every category is a tech category now. I mean, think about financial services, fintech, medical services, healthcare, medtech. We could go on and on. Technology has infiltrated every single product category out there. So it even expands beyond what we would traditionally say is just the tech industry. Well, I would say that the advice that we give is primarily branding and marketing advice. Illuminus now is part of Radius Insights and we will be rebranding ourselves into a practice division of Radius called Radius Tech that will bring together the 25 years of tech research experience that Illuminus has, along with the tech expertise that Strive, now Radius, EMEA has, along with the tech division that already existed with Radius. We’re all coming together to be Radius Tech, and in that role, we’ll bring together all of this tech expertise that we have and leverage that around the Radius brand growth navigator, which is essentially our proprietary model for how we help tech brands grow and win in the market. And that can be around messaging, positioning, product strategy, customer journey insights, win loss insights. We could go on and on with that. But it definitely does feed our clients’ knowledge base in terms of how they should grow their product portfolio, they should expand feature sets for certain products, how they should go to market with those particular products, how they should advertise and develop MarCom messages and on and on.
Priscilla McKinney: Hmm. I love that. It’s rare that I get to talk with someone about all my favorite things that you just mentioned but I do think that we all know as leaders that what’s required of us at this point is a much bigger margin of confidence in the decisions that we’re making it does feel like there is less margin for error in many of our worlds. You you get so much budget, so much runway, you know, it’s only so many opportunities at bringing your product or your service to market. And those launches are really fraught with a lot of dangers. And so I love how, you know, really Radius Tech now is going to really close the loop on what you know about marketing and what you know about technical and bring it together to give someone really a custom plan that will win for them. And I thank you so much for actually dropping that. Hey, every company is a tech company now because that is the new way we all need to be looking at our worlds and our work as we arrive. So Dr. Tracy Tuten, is there anything that I left out from this awesome conversation? Is there something I didn’t ask you that you were just dying to impart to my audience?
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Just reiterate one thing that I said a little bit ago in our conversation, and that is research is the antidote to risk. So just like you were saying, all of these launches, they are so imbued with risk. We have limited budget. We need to see success from it. Research is the investment that you make to have that antidote to risk.
Priscilla McKinney: I love that and I can see how your work is just unlocking the findings you get from that research and really making it a practical way that companies can take it and figure out how are they going to win the day and that’s really what is about you know with digital transformation success if you are spending all this money on research and getting great feedback from your user that’s fine but how are we translating this so that it is now being represented in a meaningful way so it can put your company forward. So Dr. Tracy Tuten, thank you so much for joining us on Digital Transformation Success.
Dr. Tracy Tuten: Thank you for having me, I really enjoyed it.
