The F16 is an Air Force aircraft. It’s incapable of landing on carriers.

‘House’ can just tell an arc of the story through one personality’s lens, before scrapping it for a new show, storyline, what-have-you through another character, much like spinoffs do. See Gray’s Anatomy.

Or the longevity can take place in different settings. The ‘Frasier’ character was played by Kelsey Grammer for over 20 years in (I believe) three different shows. Even today, the brand of ‘Frasier’ goes on – yesterday at the movies I heard ‘him’ voicing over an extended Hyundai brand positioning ad in which Hyundai was touted as being ‘smart’. Since I have no idea how smart Grammer must be (except to cling to and milk this character, meanwhile having a taste for strippers) I must assume that Hyundai is like ‘Frasier’!

1) Since positioning is a relative concept, having to do with “distances” between a given offering, rival offerings, and customer preferences, a shifting environment may not force much repositioning if it affects everybody about the same amount. For example, if demands for luxury in hotel rooms go up as people’s houses get nicer and more decorated, that affects all hotels in pretty much the same way, and the direction to go is pretty obvious: spiff up! On the other hand, if the shifting environment is moving in different directions at the same time, all bets may be off, and you may have to replot your improvement vector frequently and alertly.

2) The above exogenous shifts should be distinguished from endogenous instability created by the success of a position itself, a la Kathy Griffin. The latter don’t really have to do with positioning strategy per se, but with positioning tactical feasibility–you may know where you want to be, but you can’t figure out how to stay there. If you decide that you can’t stay there, then you’re forced to make a strategic repositioning.

All offerings that attract customers by being marginal, “alternative,” etc. face this issue if they get any kind of traction. Too much success destroys their marginality, requiring either a) that they take preemptive steps to limit their success (e.g., rock bands insulting fans or creating less-accessible music) in the hope of stability or b) that they broaden and strengthen their offering to transcend their marginal niche and reconceptualize themselves as “mainstream.” Honda and Toyota pulled off the latter feat in the US auto market.

3) Multivalence–Grant’s talked about this a lot. Maybe you don’t want a position that looks like a point in space, but you want to be like a cloud or a set of discrete points simultaneously. We’ve hashed that one over quite a bit on previous posts.

4) There may be saturation problems. If the BMW accelerates faster than the Mercedes, it will seem (and be) sportier. But if the Mercedes can do 0-60 in 2 seconds and BMW can do it in 1 second, that difference may no longer signify much to the buyer, since either level of acceleration is sufficient to blow the doors off all the other traffic (and even to merge onto the I-75 in Dallas). So that’s another source of instability for positioning strategy.

5) Don’t land F-16s on carriers. No hook to catch the arrester wires, landing gear not suitable for the shock of carrier landings. Probable result: big splat followed by skidding off the end of the deck, drowning, and other unpleasantries. (Sorry–couldn’t resist.)