Boost Mobile, a unit of Sprint best known for its teen positioning (”Where you at?” campaign) is changing its positioning to a value message, according to Todd Wasserman in BrandWeek. Facing strong pricing competition from the likes of Cricket and Tracfone, Boost is reducing its rates from 20 cents to 10 cents a minute. The new pricing is centered around an all-you-can-talk-for-one-dollar plan, which applies to in-network calls. The campaign uses a “Dollar a Day Chat Plan,” with George Washington as the metaphor figure. It’s a definitive shift from lifestyle positioning to price positioning.
Which begs the question: Given the current economic climate, is this the time to put all your brand eggs in the price-value basket?
It’s tempting to do so, especially when your boss is looking for the next quarter’s results, but beware!
We could do a whole series on price wars, and maybe my colleagues at the Chasm Institute would like to comment on pricing strategies in the mature market. But let’s just take the positioning itself. The problem with positioning on price only, is that it leaves you nowhere to go when your competition comes back and undercuts you with special promotions or even long-term pricing drops. This approach gets you into the dreaded Price Promotion Doom Loop. If Boost is trading off long-term brand value for short-term gains, they will find it difficult to recover to any type of premium positioning. This leaves room for competitors like Virgin Mobile (”You Rule!”) to maintain its Cool factor with youth, while offering alternative plans to compete with Boost. I believe Boost will weaken its brand and paint itself into a corner that it may regret. Its teen customers will only buy on price for so long. In the end, the personal image connection will win out. That means cool designs, and rebel positioning. We’ll see. But in these times, it is far better to keep your core positioning and emotional connection strong, and play with pricing, rather than the other way around.

Popularity: 44% [?]

If you are a local government or publicly-funded organization, or a non-profit entity, then now is the time for you to create a compelling brand or refresh the one you already have. Brand is all about relationship and both the economic conditions and the high mistrust of government means that your relationship with those who fund you may be suffering, without you even being aware of it. And the steep drop in consumer spending will be more than matched by a drop in contributions and support for the governmentt and non-profit sectors.
If you are a local provider of governmental services, then you may be suffering through an association with the governmental master brand - “those folks in Washington.” The record level of mistrust and frustration with the national government means that organizations who provide local services need to renew their relationship with those who fund them. Brand is all about a trusted relationship. How trusted is the one your local citizens have with you? Do they feel that you provide an important service and do so in a highly efficient and trusted manner? Or do they associate you with a bloated and misguided bureaucracy?

What should you do?
First, assess where you stand today. Survey a percent of your local citizens. And conduct some deeper interviews to get at what is really important to your constituents. Look for areas where you can not only fix problems, but where you can innovate new solutions.
How deep is your relationship? Do citizens support you out of a sense of necessity, or do they feel proud to be associated with you? Are they loyal to what you stand for?
Review your value proposition. Are your services still what people need? Do you deliver them in a way that matches your community’s lifestyle and adoption of technology? 
Have members of your community give feedback on your brand identity. What does your name, logo, etc. communicate to your community? Do they convey that you are professional, yet approachable?
Finally, how do you maintain and build on the relationship you have? Newsletters? Community events? What about blogging? Do you do these on a consistent basis. How effective are they and how do you know)?
If you are a leader in your organization, then you need to have a good handle on your brand strategy. Don’t wait until the next election cycle.
Do it now.

Popularity: 37% [?]