When STP Goes Wrong — Anti-Cases
The productive tension
STP as powerful frameworkandas source of strategic errors when misapplied
The synthesis
STP is among the most powerful frameworks in marketing strategy. When applied with judgement, it diagnoses markets, identifies opportunities, and guides positioning. AND when misapplied — through over-segmentation, under- differentiation, repositioning hubris, targeting traps, or organisational rigidity — it produces strategic disasters that destroy brand equity and waste resources. The synthesis view: STP is a tool that can cut in both directions. The framework is not the error. The error is in how the framework is applied — without evidence, without humility, and without the willingness to hold its tensions rather than resolve them prematurely.
Learning objectives
- →Identify the seven common failure modes of STP misapplication
- →Analyse repositioning failures through the Both/And lens
- →Explain why over-segmentation reduces rather than increases strategic clarity
- →Evaluate the "stuck in the middle" problem and its relationship to underdifferentiation
- →Apply the Both/And framework to diagnose what went wrong in specific STP failures
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