BRAND POSITIONING

Brand is. .
A promise by a company to its customers that
differentiates its products and services over time.

(The objective is customer loyalty)

A Brand is more than a Product

Organizational Associations Brand Personality

PRODUCT
Scope Symbols
Country of origin
Attributes
Quality Brand-customer
Uses Relationship
User Imagery

Self Expressive Benefits Emotional Benefits

Understanding the Brand Promise
The brand promise defines the customer’s expectations for the experience.

Being the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the
best customer experience in markets we serve.

We want to do business with you on your terms-- when you want, where
you want.

Brand Identity and Brand Image

Brand Positioning

“To position a product/service in the minds of

consumers relative to competitors”
Ries and Trout

“The brand has to be distinctive, relevant and

appealing to its target audience”
Robbertson 2000
Positioning Levels

By attribute - Omo, Dove, and Volvo

By price/quality - Mr. Price, Woolworths

 By product user - Diesel, Chivas Regal

Marketing Strategy

 Segmentation

 Targeting

 Positioning
Target Market Segmentation

 A market segment should have similar

Knowledge structures and brand knowledge
 Similar knowledge structures might mean
similar perceptions and beliefs about your
Brand

There are 2 ways to segment:-

 Descriptive: characteristics of the

individuals in the market
 Behavioral: grouped by how individuals in
the market perceive or use the product

Toothpaste Segmentation

Four main segments:-

  Sensory segment

 Flavor and product appearance

 Sociable

 Brightness of teeth

 Worriers

 Decay Prevention

 Independent

 Low Price

What is Positioning
Positioning is the act of designing the company’s
offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in
the mind of the target market.

Proper Positioning
  Proper positioning
 Clarifies what the Brand is all about
 How it is both unique and similar to
competitive brands
 Why customers should purchase and
use the Brand.

In order to Position a Brand…

You must decide
 Who the Target Consumer is
 Who your main competitors are
 How the brand is similar to your competitors
 How the brand is different from your
competitors

Where do you get this information?

 Your BRAND INVENTORY!!

How do I begin to Position my Brand?

Communicate category membership

This is the “frame of reference”, where customers

can activate what they know about the category and
how apply it

How?

 Communicate category benefits

 Compare your product to exemplars
 Rely on product description

FOCUS OF POSITIONING

 Attributes and benefits of the product

 Competition
 Product User
 Product use or application
 Product class
 Cultural Symbols
STEPS IN POSITIONING
 Identify Competitors.

 Determine most important attributes

consumers use in choosing a brand

 Determine consumer’s perceptions of

competitors.

 Determine pereptions of your brand

 What is the ideal brand for your market

segments?

 Assess best positioning strategy

 Track image of brand over time

Brand Positioning
 Brand positioning is all about identifying the optimal
location in our customers’ minds for our Brand and our
competitors.

 Proper positioning makes it easier to facilitate

understanding of our Brand.

Taken to its’ logical conclusion, you might think of

the Principle as an indicator of a brand’s position.

First Steps….
 The first step is to identify and establish Brand
positioning and brand values (Keller)

 Positioning is the foundation for creating and

fostering the desired knowledge and perceptions of
your customers
 remember our 3 types of associations in memory?
 We can really only manage one (positive), can
respond to a second (negative), and have no
control over the third (idiosyncratic)

Identifying and establishing Brand Positioning

The Integrated Brand Model

 Six elements that define a brand

 Unified
 Leverage each other
 Brand Drivers a function of Organization
drivers

 These six elements serve as a “roadmap” to our

Brand Equity model

 At every step, we can figure out what to do from

our Brand and Organization Drivers

Brand Positioning Guiding Principles….

1. A brand's positioning should be updated every

three to
five years, or as often as needed to update the
company's overall growth strategy.
2. Positioning should drive all of an organization's
brand strategies, as well as revenue and profit
streams.
3. Senior management has to lead the charge in
implementing a brand's positioning.
4. Employees, not advertising agencies, bring a brand
positioning to life.
5. A strong brand positioning is customer driven and
fits with customer perceptions of the brand.

Positioning - The Process….

POP and POD

Points-of-difference –unique brand values

 Desirable
 Deliverable

Points-of-parity–shared brand values

 Necessary
 Competitive

Nuts and Bolts

How do I decide on my PODs and POPs?

POPs

 Analysis of category
  What attributes do all of my competitors
have? I probably need to have those, or my
competitors automatically have a POD
 POPs get you included in category

PODs are more difficult

 Don’t use PODs that are product centric
(dominate competition) but customer centric
(uniquely address need of customer)

POP and POD

POD (Point of Difference)

 Strong, favorable, unique brand associations
 May be any kind of attribute or benefit

Two types of PODs

 Attribute Based
 Functional, performance related differences

 Image Based
 Affective, experiential, brand image related
differences

POP (Point of Parity)

 Associations that are shared with other brands
Two types
 Category: attributes that are required to include
your product as a member of that category
 Competitive: POP that negate your competitors
PODs

Managerial issues
Criteria for POD

 Desirability
 Must be Relevant
 Must be Distinctive
 Must be Believable

 Deliverability
 Feasibility
 Communicability
 Sustainability

Establish POP and POD in marketplace

 Difficulty: Many attributes that make up POP and
PODs are negatively opposed

 Low price vs. High quality

 Tastes Great vs. Less filling
 Separate the attributes
 Leverage equity in another entity
 Redefine the relationship

Positioning - The Process….

Point of Difference?

“Announce the frame of reference but

compete on point/s of difference.”
- Keller

Relevant
Compelling
Believable
Deliverable
Difficult to attack

Point of Difference Questions….

 Is the key benefit important to our customer?
 Can we deliver the benefit?
 Can we own this point of difference over time?
 Is this point of difference sustainable over our
competition and their directions?
Craft the Brand Positioning Statement

Relevant, differentiated and single-minded!

Plato - Deep within everything is the idea of that

thing (essence)

The “defining idea” Moon 2000

Integration

Experienced at every point of contact - over time

Three Elements
Target Audience
Compelling benefit
Reason Why (Kitchen Logic)

All Elements

Packaging, Pricing, Distribution,

Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing….
All work in unison to the beat of the brand
positioning statement.
Going From Strategy to Idea

Brand Positioning
Provides the strategic framework for how we
are going to differentiate our brand vs. competition.

Advertising Idea:
Transforms the strategy Into a powerful,
motivating, and consumer relevant selling idea.

Brand Positioning
 Perceived fit between a particular product
offering and the needs of target market

 Positioning is defined relative to:

 competitive offerings
 consumer needs

 Physical Positioning
 How a firm’s product compares to the
competition’s on some set of objective
physical characteristics
  Perceptual Positioning
 How a firm’s product compares to the
competition’s on some set of subjective
characteristics

A brand can be positioned in several ways:

 Benefit positioning.
 Target positioning.
 Price positioning
 Positioning by distribution.
Similar concepts
 Unique Selling Proposition (USP; Reeves and
Bates)
 Advertisers should give a compelling reason
to buy a product that competitors could not
match

What component of the IBM reflects this?

Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA)

 The advantage of delivering superior value in

the marketplace for a prolonged period of time
 Further, SCAs can result from any component of
the firm
  Similar to notion that Principle exists in
every part of the firm

CONCLUSION….
 Adopting a strong position is not a passive act;
rather it is a deliberate attempt to influence
events. It requires ignoring certain business
targets in favor of others, and if successful, will
yield growth in sales and profits and a consumer
franchise who believe that your brand has no
adequate substitute, even if it costs more.

 Neither innovation or quality are, by

themselves, sufficient to guarantee that a brand
will achieve all that it is capable of in the market
place.