Semantic ambiguity in post-rationalization
I know it’s unfair for me to pick on a book based on a one-paragraph summary, but I was perusing the Ries & Ries site and noticed these sentences describing Al Ries’s Focus.
How do you build a brand? You narrow the focus. Nokia narrowed its focus to cellphones and became the world’s No. 1 cellphone brand. Federal Express narrowed its focus to overnight deliveries and became one of the world’s leading cargo carriers. Southwest narrowed its focus to coach service only and became America’s most profitable airline. Dell narrowed its focus to direct sales only and became the world’s leading PC manufacturer.
Let’s examine the examples of “focus” Ries provides here:
- Nokia focused on a product category.
- FedEx highlighted a subset of its broader service offering (or focused on a service attribute: speed).
- Southwest focused on one part of a typical airline offering by eliminating other offerings (i.e., no first class).
- Dell focused on a channel, or product delivery method.
I’m sure the book does a great job of sorting everything out, but in these examples, “focus” can mean anything Ries wants it to. (Check the “myth of one thing” that I picked on in an earlier post.) I’m no logician, but I did a little web research and believe this is a logical fallacy known as equivocation, in which “a term is used in two or more different senses within a single argument.” Focus is important for brands, to varying degrees depending on which definition we choose and what a company’s situation is. But if we define it so loosely, it becomes almost comically unhelpful, like telling an athlete that the key to victory is “movement.”
If “focus” can mean anything we want, so can “lack of focus.” It makes everything we say right, and it means we can find examples to support both sides of any argument.
- Red Bull succeeds? It’s because they focus on energy drinks—it’s all they do. Red Bull fails? It’s because they lack focus on a psychographically distinct customer segment, the way Monster clearly does.
- Starbucks succeeds? It’s because they focus on a “third place,” where customers can relax and indulge. Starbucks fails? It’s because they lost their focus on high-quality coffee when they started selling more food and non-coffee drinks.
And so on. Every argument feels logical in isolation. Useful trick for looking like you’re right after the fact, but not necessarily useful for being right ahead of time. (See Laura Ries’s prediction of iPhone’s failure due to a lack of focus.) Unfair of me, right? Maybe I’ll go read the book now…
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Great post Rob. I had the same point in mind when I wrote about Volvo supposedly owning safety (http://namedropping.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/what-word-comes-to-mind-when-you-think-of-volvo/).
It’s an ad man’s fixation on ad campaign themes and belongs to another era.