Battle of the Brains

By Yeoh Siew Hoon

Al Ries, the marketing guru and reputed father of the term “positioning”, believes the biggest problem in the business world is the battle between the left brainers and the right brainers. Left brainers are verbal, logical and analytical while right brainers are visual, intuitive and holistic.

Mavericks, he says, are right brainers and managers veer to the left. “One isn’t better than the other, they are just different but it’s the single biggest problem in business today. They don’t think alike.”

Speaking on “Building Brands Through Positioning” at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore, Ries outlined the ways in which managers and mavericks were different.

1. Managers deal in reality while managers deal in perceptions.

Using the American automobile industry as an example, he said the largest Asian selling cars in the USA are Toyota, Honda, Nissan, followed by Hyundai. Hyundai is known as “cheap”, “which is not bad – look at Walmart.”

“The managers want better cars, the mavericks want better perceptions. What did management do next? They offered a luxury car, Hyundai Genesis,” an exercise he said was a disaster.

“The manager believes, if you change reality, you change perception. The maverick believes, you can’t change strongly-held perceptions.”

2. Managers favour a full line, mavericks favour a narrow line

The airline industry, he said, is run by left brain managers. “Everytime they come to a fork in their strategy, they always say, let’s do both. Until Southwest came along and said, let’s do a one-fork airline. They broke all the rules and built a great company, just as Tony Fernandes did with AirAsia.”

Another example – Motorola vs Nokia. Motorola makes everything while Nokia threw out everything and focused on one product, the cellphone. Motorola has a profit margin of 1.6% versus Nokia’s 11.9%.

3. Managers would like to own everything, mavericks would like to own a word.

In an over-communicated society where there is too much marketing noise, the solution is an over-simplified message, he said. Google owns search, Volvo, safety and Body Shop, natural cosmetics.

When an insurance company tested the 10 safest cars in America, none of them were Volvo. “It doesn’t matter. Volvo owns safety in the mind.”

“What word do you own?” he challenged the audience.

Barrack Obama, the US Democratic Presidential nominee, owned the word “change” while John McCain, the Republican candidate, owns “confusion”, he said. “This is why Obama will win.”

4. Managers want to copy the competition; mavericks want to do the opposite

When the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz wanted to launch the Red Bull Energy Drink, he conducted research, Ries recounted. This is what he said, according to Ries – “People didn’t like the can, the logo, the brand name. I’d never expected such a disaster.” But he went ahead to launch an 8.3 oz can, a first, and the rest is history.

5. Managers expect a big bang launch, mavericks expect a slow take-off

“Every curve I have studied of every product launch looks the same. It starts slow and then it reaches tipping point and then it accelerates till it reaches the cresting point of maturity,” said Ries. The same curve applies to the iPOD, he added.

6. Managers think brand first; mavericks think categories first

A brand is the tip of the iceberg, the iceberg is the category, he said.

7. Managers prefer single brands, mavericks prefer multiple brands

“So what makes more sense? Common sense or maverick sense,” asks Ries.

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