| Course | MT359 Integrated Marketing Communications |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Positioning statement |
| Length | About 1,160 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT359 Unit 2
Spread by Hand: An MT359 Unit 2 Positioning Statement Tested Against Every Rival Who Might Sign It
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT359: Integrated Marketing Communications
Unit 2 Positioning Statement
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The tamale company, interviews and competitors are composite; the positioning sources cited are real.
The Situation
Nogalitos Tamale Co., a composite family company in San Antonio, supplies frozen dozen-packs of pork tamales in red chile to about 340 grocers between the Rio Grande Valley and Austin. Its yellow bag sells for $8.99. The freezer case is held by a national leader whose machine-made dozen sells for $6.99, and by two store brands made by a single co-packer on an extruding line, priced near $5.99. Unit 1 found that the brand's own grocery circular had been teaching shoppers to treat Nogalitos as a $4.50 product. A position has to give the brand a reason to cost more that a shopper can believe.
Where Shoppers Put the Brand Today
Ries and Trout (2001) argue that buyers keep a mental ladder for each product category, with one brand on each rung, and that a brand rarely climbs past an entrenched leader on the leader's own ladder. Twenty-two shopper interviews, held outside four stores in December, show the ladder for frozen tamales. Asked to name frozen tamale brands, eighteen named the national leader first. Eleven named a store brand second. Only six mentioned Nogalitos at all, and only one of the nine respondents under forty-five did. Those who knew it described it as the local brand that is often on sale.
The interviews also showed what shoppers missed. Fourteen of the twenty-two said that the best tamales they had eaten were made by a relative or bought from a church sale, and most said they no longer had either source. Several described store tamales as all the same, a phrase that came up without prompting in seven interviews.
That ladder is the problem in the buyer's own terms. Competing for the second rung would mean persuading shoppers that Nogalitos is a better version of what the leader sells, which invites a comparison on price that a regional company with one plant cannot win. The brand needs a ladder the leader is not standing on.
Six Claims and Who Else Could Sign Them
Six claims were drawn from the brand's packaging, its sales sheets and an owners' meeting. Each was tested with one question: could a named competitor make the same claim honestly?
Family recipe. The national leader's box tells its founder's story, and both store brands print the word homemade. Every rival could sign it.
Slow-cooked pork. The leader advertises slow-cooked pork shoulder. The store brands do not, but the leader's claim is enough to make this one shared.
Generous filling. Filling weight per tamal is close across all three products when weighed. A rival could sign it, and a shopper cannot check it at the case.
Premium quality. Every brand in the freezer case already says something like it, and no one can disprove it, which is why no one believes it.
Local. True, but the co-packer's plant is also in Texas, and one store brand is sold as a Texas brand. A rival could sign it in spirit.
Spread by hand. Nogalitos's 46 spreaders spread masa onto each husk by hand and fold it, as families do at a Christmas tamalada. The national leader and the co-packer both form their tamales on extruding machines. No rival could sign this claim without changing how it makes its product.
A claim a competitor could also sign positions nobody; spread by hand is the only line in the table with the rival column empty.
Why Family Recipe Lost
The owners liked family recipe best, and it deserves a fuller answer than the others. It is true, it is warm and it is the story the founders tell. But it fails the test twice. Every competitor already prints some version of it, so it does not separate the brand. And because no one can check it, it reads as advertising language. Carpenter et al. (1994) showed that brands can sometimes gain from differences that do not matter, but only when the difference is distinctive and the rivals have not claimed it. Family recipe has been claimed by everyone. The family story is not discarded. It moves into support, the reason the brand still spreads by hand, rather than serving as the position itself.
The Onliness Sentence
Neumeier (2007) proposes a test for a brand's difference: complete a single sentence beginning with the word only, naming what the brand is, how it differs, for whom, where, why it matters and in what era. If the sentence cannot be finished truthfully, the difference is not strong enough. For Nogalitos the sentence reads:
Nogalitos is the only frozen tamale spread by hand, for South Texas households raised on Christmas tamaladas, sold in 340 local grocery stores, at a time when parish tamale sales are closing one by one.
Each part of the sentence carries weight. The category is frozen tamales, not Mexican food, so the brand competes where it is sold. The difference is a fact about how the product is made, which a camera can show. The buyer is defined by a memory, not an age band. The place is the region the brand actually serves. And the era names a loss the buyer may already feel: the church sales and family kitchens that once made tamales by hand are fewer every year.
What the Position Asks of the Business
A position is a promise about the product, so it binds operations as well as advertising. The plant must keep spreading by hand even when a machine would be cheaper, and the brand must say so plainly if it ever changes. The spreaders become part of the brand's story, which means hiring and training them is a marketing concern too. And the price must stay high enough to pay for the hands, which is why the circular deals found in Unit 1 must end.
Claims Now Off Limits
Three kinds of claims are forbidden from now on, each with its reason. Best value invites the comparison on price that the leader wins. More per bag, or more filling, invites a comparison on quantity that the leader can match by changing a recipe. And anything about speed or convenience, such as ready in minutes, describes every frozen tamale and would make later campaign pieces argue a second idea. Every piece in the campaign that follows should carry one idea, spread by hand, so that the brand stops quoting shoppers two messages at once.
Limits
Twenty-two interviews outside four stores cannot describe the whole market, and shoppers stopped in December were thinking about Christmas tamales more than usual. The survey planned for Unit 9 will test whether spread by hand becomes linked to the brand once the campaign runs.
References
Carpenter, G. S., Glazer, R., & Nakamoto, K. (1994). Meaningful brands from meaningless differentiation: The dependence on irrelevant attributes. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(3), 339-350. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379403100302
Neumeier, M. (2007). Zag: The number one strategy of high-performance brands. New Riders.
Ries, A., & Trout, J. (2001). Positioning: The battle for your mind (20th anniversary ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Reading the MT 359 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 asks for a positioning statement the rest of the campaign can be built on. The prompt expects students to show where the brand stands in buyers' minds now, test possible claims against competitors and write the result as one statement. Instructors want the competition shown through evidence such as interviews, a perceptual map or a ladder, not asserted. Several candidate claims should be compared using the same test, ideally whether a named rival could make each one. Rejected claims need reasons, especially any the owners favor. The final statement should carry one idea. Students are often asked to note what the position requires of the business and which claims later work must avoid.
How this MT359 Unit 2 example is built
A short situation section sets out the brand, its price and its rivals' prices, then recalls the Unit 1 circular problem. The ladder follows, with interview counts and the quotes about all store tamales tasting the same. Six claims are tested one by one, each with the rival who could also sign it. A highlighted line marks spread by hand as the only claim with an empty rival column. Family recipe, the owners' favorite, gets its own section and moves into support. The onliness sentence is written out and each part explained. A section on what the position asks of operations follows, then three banned claims and a limits note on the December interviews.
MT359 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Positioning papers tend to be marked on whether the chosen claim is ownable, whether the competitive picture rests on evidence and whether alternatives were weighed. A claim that a named rival could not honestly make earns the most. Showing the buyer's view through interviews or a ladder counts for more than describing the brand's own view of itself. Rubrics often reward a fair contest among several claims, with reasons for each rejection. A statement holding two ideas, quality and value say, usually loses points. Linking the position to operations and pricing shows depth. Sources such as Ries and Trout and Neumeier should be applied to the case and cited in APA 7.
Common MT359 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Positioning drafts often settle on quality, value or a family story, words that every competitor in the case already prints. Another pattern presents one claim with no contest, which reads as a guess. Some students write a slogan instead of a statement, though the statement guides the campaign rather than appearing in it. Others describe the brand's own beliefs about itself and never show how buyers see the category. Statements also stretch to cover two ideas at once. A useful check is to print your best claim with each rival's name in place of your brand. If any rival could sign it truthfully, keep looking, and move the old claim into support.
Get an MT359 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Name the brand behind your Unit 2 prompt and the competitors sharing its shelf; then the prompt, with its grading rubric, is all that remains. A free first custom statement follows within 24-48h, with a rival column for every candidate claim and the one that survives written out as a single sentence. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT359 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
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- MT359 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
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- MT359 Unit 9: Evaluation Plan
- MT359 Unit 10: Integrated Campaign Plan
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MT359 Unit 2 questions, answered
Is Ries and Trout still accepted as a source for positioning?
Generally, yes. Their book remains one of the most cited works on the subject, and its ideas about owning a word and starting a new category appear in most marketing texts. Check whether your course reading uses a different framework, such as a perceptual map or a four-part statement, and use that if the prompt names it. Citing the original beside the course text is common.
What is an onliness statement?
A one-sentence test from Marty Neumeier's book Zag: the brand is the only one in its category that delivers a stated difference to a stated buyer, in a stated place, during a stated trend. If the sentence cannot be completed truthfully with the word only, the difference is not yet strong enough. Many papers use it as a check beside the formal statement.
How many candidate claims should the paper test?
Enough to show a real contest, usually four to seven. Include the claims the brand currently makes and the ones its owners favor, since rejecting a favorite with reasons shows judgment. Each candidate needs the same test, most simply whether a named competitor could make it honestly, so the surviving claim is chosen by the table rather than by preference.
Where can I find a free MT359 Unit 2 sample paper?
You can read the full MT359 Unit 2 positioning statement on this page, where six tamale claims are tested and spread by hand survives.
Why does family recipe lose in the MT359 Unit 2 sample?
Every rival already prints some version of it and no shopper can check it, so it moves into support as the reason the brand still spreads by hand.