Does RH Bill need a Repositioning Strategy?

In marketing we learned that while positioning is establishing your place in the mind of the customer, repositioning on the other hand is adjusting the current positioning that the brand already has in the customer’s mind. Part of starting a new brand or a new product is to find its positioning but repositioning is an activity for brands, companies, names, etc. that already exist, whether the perception of them is good or bad that is in need of a positioning makeover.

RH Bill may be a law but to the general public it is a service, a service or program that happens to be from the government that can also benefit from a good positioning or a repositioning.

What is RH Bill’s positioning to the public lately? If it will be alright to share my views, RH Bill has an unclear positioning to the public as a result of clashes in opinions. The opinions are fine but if they are too opposing, once it gets to be implemented in the general public, it is going to be confusing. Some groups say that it is a change movement for the poor, families and women to be empowered to plan their family size. Anti-RH Bill people say it is useless and a controlling mechanism to curb the population, not to mention very strong religious views pertaining to abortion, the use of condoms, etc.

To my own not-an-expert assessment, I think it is pro-poor and pro-family planning and pro-informed choice but I somehow see that the problem could just be in re-positioning what it is in the minds of people. You see brands may think they have good features but sometimes no matter what they do, the general public seems to think it is otherwise, so what the founder of “positioning” Jack Trout proposed was to use the market to shape the brand’s new positioning.

Obviously, saying RH Bill is pro-poor and pro-change did not necessarily work for people and will need a lot of convincing. In marketing, that will take a heavy investment in terms of advertising to get consumers to think otherwise. That’s why Jack Trout proposed that brands reposition themselves to resonate better in people’s minds.

My proposal is for RH Bill to be repositioned in “name.” It should change the name already if it is attached to wrong views that are difficult to break whether they are accurate or not. That’s what brands and publicity do.

What it can do is change the emphasis. Instead of Reproductive Health, it should emphasize Marriage and Life. Reproductive Health has different meanings for different people. Reproductive Health pertains to those not married and those who are. No matter how many clauses written in the bill that says it is for those of age, not all people are going to buy it because in their minds, reproductive health pertains to those not married and those married as well.

The words “Reproductive Health” is hazy between the unmarried and the married. That’s where we need to draw the line. Because I am definitely with the Catholic Church that I don’t believe in reproductive health outside of marriage. You are not entitled to have sex until you have made your commitment to take care and love the other as your spouse for life. With or without sex, you commit to love and cherish the other and sex is just one blessing to consummate the agreement with God and the other significant partner in the relationship. Think of Joseph and Mary. Joseph took Mary to be his wife when she was pregnant with the Holy Spirit but “he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:25) They did not have the entitled act until Jesus was born and until they were already married. Joseph took care of Mary without the sex. The vow should precede the act.

The Catholic Church has a call also to preserve the sanctity of marriage. No religion has as much reach probably to married people as the Catholic Church. Think of the many weddings and baptisms that take place in their churches. In the Philippines, it is said you have to book your wedding schedule ideally one year before to get a good slot. That’s how many weddings that are taking place in this country, and I believe, in many parts of the world.

I support the Catholic Church’s call to preserve the union of marriage. They can be as vocal as they want to be because it is God’s stand. And I see it as a good opportunity and a good life-preserving task assigned to them for the glory of God.

Second, when we talk to the youth regarding this service or program, emphasizing marriage as the precedent to reproductive health will preserve and inform the youth of the importance of marriage. The Catholic Church just wants to preserve the minds of the youth regarding sex education because it might make them more open and prone to it rather than choose otherwise.

I am a single person but I leave marriage counseling to the married couples in our Church. I don’t have the vaguest idea what couples do in marriage. Teaching teenagers about the right sex, to someone who has committed to keep himself pure, like our lay leaders, and like me also while I’m single, that is close to torture. No edits needed. It’s torture. You can ask us to teach how to remain pure while single. I may not always be perfect at it but by God’s grace I am equipped to teach it (Hebrews 13:21). But I leave the sex education to the married people because I want to keep my mind pure and I’m sure our Catholic leaders want to as well. So let’s not lead them to compromise.

The Bible says that we should be “be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil” (Romans 16:19). The Bible exhorts us to have wisdom even in the good things like marriage and sex. Marriage is good. Sex is good because God created it, but in the boundary of marriage. It is good if it is planned for with wisdom.

Second thing it says is we should be innocent about what is evil, which is sex outside of marriage. People think that by trying different partners they will be ready for marriage. Marriage is more than sex. Marriage is about self-sacrificing love for God and his purposes and love for the other. Instead of practicing sex or practicing how to fulfil the desires of the opposite sex, practice love, charity and chastity in your single life. Instead of practicing how to gratify the opposite sex with fulfilling sex, practice role and responsibility in the context of work, your life call or your Church. Let the learning come after that when both of you are ready. There is more to life than just sex. We should instead teach the youth about marriage and the responsibilities of marriage, not just the sex preservation. Marriage is more than sex. Anyone who at any time got divorced or got married knows it is more than that. Teach not just the definition, rules and what nots, but the vision of God for married people and the responsibilities.

In our Church, we do talk with singles about marriage. We talk about planning for it. We talk about honoring God and how it can help us to truly honor our future partner even while we’re single. The bottomline should go back to God and his vision for marriage and sex.

I am not anti-change or anti-law when I say this. I am for the law and for the government and for change. My stand is that we need to execute it in such a way that we avoid any open door for evil and we are truly serving God and serving the people by promoting what is good. Why not just emphasize it as Marriage of Life Planning? “Marriage” and “Life” are what will resonate with the Catholic Church and it is something we will all agree to as our bottomline.

My stand is I am okay with family planning for married people only, marriage planning for singles, life planning for teenagers.

How about if we reposition the bill for these three groups of people? The law can be one and the same but the needs of the people are different. We can communicate it to people differently - a different campaign for the youth, a different campaign for married people, and a different campaign for single adults planning marriage. Of course doing that will entail more work but then again, life-birthing change is never an easy task. Ever wonder why it takes nine months of pregnancy and hours of labor before a baby is born?

That’s just one proposal to mitigate risks and truly serve the different needs of the constituents of this bill.

To conclude, I only touched on the information campaign part of The Reproductive Health Bill, which says that it proposes to do a family planning curriculum for grade school and high school. I did not touch on the other side of the Reproductive Health Bill which is a policy to make available family planning tools and hospital services for the poor.

One more limitation. My view is just one of the many so please don’t take it as the final word except for the Words of God which are uncompromising and permanent.

Au revoir! God bless you and Have a Merry Christmas!

References:

Jack Trout and Al Ries, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001).

Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin, REPOSITIONING: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009).