Oh traveller.. Where to from here??

After coming to DoMS, I came to know that there is a term in marketing called 'Positioning'..

Positioning is the image which you want to form in the mind of the customer.. What should the customer think of your product??

I can get you some examples.

Both CCD(Cafe coffee day) and Barista are premium coffee shops.. Both do well and in a varied sense.. CCD is often considered a hangout place with friends.. The shops are near college campuses and other youth spots.. They target the younger audience, preferably.. The ambience there is vibrant, colorful, loud music et al.. But in the case of Barista, it is targeted towards the business people.. The music is subtle, the colors are professional.. May be you can close a business deal there..

This is called positioning..

Now what is the relevance of that to me?? What is the need to define positioning??

I guess it has a lot to do with my 1st quarter here at DoMS.. What I have done in the last 2 months is pure fun.. unadulterated fun.. But fun does come at a cost.. Ain't it?

I was clueless as to what was happening in the class.. Even if I sit in the class I don't understand anything other than marketing and systems thinking classes, as those are the only classes where the previous ones don't make much of a difference.. I invariably sleep.. I feel that the classes are strategically positioned to sleep.. I have been used to waking up at 10am in the morning and start some active work by 11.30.. Here the classes start as early as 8.. Next class at 10.. These 2 classes I end up sleeping.. Then after lunch, the food makes me sleep in the AC classes.. By 3 when I m wide awake the classes get over for the day!!

I din't worry much about classes too.. Marks have never been important to me.. But the thing which worries me is I don't think I have understood the concepts involved too.. Another thing is I din't take a conscious step to learn outside.. I ended up seeing 2 seasons or 44 episodes or 968

minutes of footage time of 'How i met your mother' in 7 days.. I have seen much bigger numbers in shorter time.. But that these 7 days come at the most important week of my first quarter is what makes me think..

The most possible reason is that I din't love the subjects and was sitting there just for the heck of it.. The most possible reason I saw the sitcoms was I loved it though I dint think I would.. So things are going like this.. Had this small realization when I was staring at the exam papers with a blank face.. I even thought if I had been more blank during my under-grad..

Now comes another concept in marketing called 'Repositioning'.. Altering your stand or taking a new stand..

Here again a good example..

When Nestle launched Milkmaid a few decades back, it was marketed as a condensed milk.. If you don't get your usual milk packets or if you want a change from the usual, you can try that.. Its basically asking the traditional homegrown customer to quit the fresh milk to go for milkmaid.. It was not well received in the market.. The product bombed.. Nestle went back to the drawing board.. Found out its mistake.. Din't want to quit that product by giving a lame excuse.. Instead changed the product to an artificial sweetener.. When you prepare sweets, you can use milkmaid instead of sugar or jagri; They promised the taste would be much better.. It was and the rest is history..

My prof said: Theory without practice is useless. Practice without theory is blind..

Well, I don't want to be blind.. I need some re-positioning for Q2!!