I thoroughly enjoyed Lauren Smith‘s insight on Virgin’s approach to positioning and branding. I found it interesting that she noticed that Virgin does not seem to be following Ries and Trout’s advice in their book ‘Positioning: The battle for your Mind’, which outlines many guidelines for companies seeking to diversify and understand how to design the most effective marketing strategy.
Lauren’s blog post made made me think about how there are many rules and instructions on how to be successful, but as demonstrated by Virgin and many other companies, it is obvious that it is not enough to blindly take other people’s advice. Each new company needs to take many different views and resources into consideration, and have the ability to pick and choose what information is applicable for their specific business and market. There is a wealth of advice and strategies available, and they are very useful as guidelines, but it is important that every entrepreneur be educated and able to think critically and derive information from the market and have an excellent understanding so you are not just blindly navigating the business world. That is why I am so motivated to learn as much as I can at Sauder, and be able to take everything that I will learn and apply it to whatever venture I choose to focus on.