Positioning... Purpose

A few weeks ago, I met with Mike Byrne of Anomaly for drinks in New Orleans.  The next day I attended his lunch-time presentation to the South Shore New Orleans AMA.  He said a few things over drinks and several things at the lunch that have resonated with me since.  His most memorable points were reflective of a theme that's been repeatedly discussed at Incite Kitchen since about June.  That is, positioning is useless without a soulful purpose.   

Lisa has blogged about this recently concerning Unilever's contradictory positionings for their Dove and Axe brands.  And just last week, after discussing Lisa's thoughts with Rye Clifton from The Martin Agency over breakfast at Iconosphere, Rye posted the below video to You Tube, illustrating Lisa's point very well. 

If the time has come to do away with the word "consumers," as we should really just call the people who keep all of us employed and help us build the world's brands, well, "people"... isn't it about time we did away with positionings?  Once they're discovered to be soulless and contrived (and most of them are), the below or worse is a brand's consequence in today's digitally enabled consumer driven world... excuse me, digitally enabled people driven world.