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First name Last name: Professor: Course title: Marketing (consumer behavior) 08 May 2010 Brand positioning For every company, regardless of its size, well-focused and constant consideration to branding and to creating a favorable, memorable brand position in the minds of consumers is the most effective way to compete, to rise above the static, to become the go-to solution in any market. The paper is aimed to understand why positioning is so fundamentally important, in responding to consumers behavior and in order to survive in the competitive market. For this purpose, first the concept of positioning will be understood as a consumer satisfaction strategy. Positioning is a concept in marketing which was first popularized by Al Ries and Jack Trout (1981) in their bestseller book "Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind." They defined Positioning as "an organized system for finding a window in the mind. They emphasized the importance of right time and right circumstances for getting into the consumers mind (p. 19 of 2001 paperback edition). In simpler terms, it is the way you want customers to perceive, think, and feel about your brand vs. competition. Brand positioning articulates the purposes that a consumer will achieve by using the brand & explain why it is superior to other means of accomplishing this goal (Calkins & Tybout, 11) .

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Ways of getting success in love or marriage is very similar to building your brands position in market.Being first to get into the mind of your beloved at the right time and never give a chance to your partner to abandon you. For a brand, to build successful relationship with customers, the statement, logo of the brand, must communicate with the customer and must be able to create a mark in their minds. The statement must be authentic, unique and reliable (Chapin), that can be trusted. Positioning is creating a one-on-one relationship with your consumer, that brings your brand to life, tells a story, gives it a personality. Good positioning pushes a consumer, on both functional and emotional grounds for buying. Smart brands respect and acknowledge consumers emotions and create benefits that connect on a psychological level with feelings. It explicitly identifies the rationale your brand is in the marketplace & responds to the consumers critical query, Whats in it for me? A focused and well-intended positioning creates a picture in the mind of your consumers, the picture you want him or her to visualize of your brand what you offer in relation to all the other choices that your consumer has. Positioning is the marketing fundamental that you use so that your brand will stand out amongst the rest instead of getting lost in the crowd. Positioning defines who you are, what you offer, and why they should forget about your competition. Positioning is a fight for consumers mind and the best way to win this fight is by clearly differentiating yourself from your competition in what you are offering.

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Fair & Lovely is a Unilever brand, sold in more than 30 countries across South Asia, Africa and Middle East. Fair & Lovely was launched in 1975, and became international in 1988. In the initial years, Fair & Lovely positioned itself on functional benefits and was very successful in placing itself in consumers mind as a fairness cream. Its effectiveness can be judged by the fact, that till today the only fairness cream brand whose name everyone knows is Fair & Lovely. Fair & Lovely through its advertisements showed that if one is fair that means one is beautiful and so beauty=fairness=Fair & Lovely. With the passage of time and the brand realizing that it has firmly placed itself in the mind of the consumer as a fairness cream (functional benefit), fair & Lovely started to now position itself on emotional or aspirational grounds. And so addressing the females that they can change their lives by becoming and that fairness is what is missing and Fair & lovely will do that. Moreover exploiting the preference for fair skin and portraying it as a requisite for success and promoting the product to achieve the ideal. So, the big winners in the marketplace are the brands that carefully consider - and then address both functional and emotional benefits.

Brands tend to create their unique and distinct image in a consumers mind. This positioning helps them to make realize the consumers about the difference. For this purpose they adopt different techniques. Some marketers carry out research to view how consumers view other brands in comparison of their own. This helps in plotting a perceptual map, which helps determining their competitive offerings as well as positioning (Understanding consumer behavior, 19). Consumer research by some marketers also helps them to evaluate the consumers choice, while positioning new offerings. Moreover, the market research may also help marketers in realizing the products positioning in the consumers mind. In case, the research reveals that their present

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positioning is not registering, marketers usually consider changing their positioning with a strategy that is more likely to be effective In this way positioning helps in abiding with such characteristics, that are appreciated by target market. For example, Toyotas target market for the scion is car buyers in their twenties and thirties. Through research, Toyota learned that the targeted consumers look forward to desirable quality for their money, like unique styling & want to customize their cars. As a result, the Scions positioning, caters to all these factors, particularly the self-expression aspect that has become a key differentiator. Scion has been the most recent company to capture its audience by using the label of being cool; it attracts the young and trendy people. as an excuse to buy. You can customize your Scion to be totally rad, man!It doesnt matter if it has a tremendous amount of road noise, thin tires, and a chincey suspension; as long as it looks cool. And quite frankly, our older generation wants to be younger-looking so they buy products that are being marketed to younger audiences. Hence the research into consumer behaviors helped in developing marketing strategies, with substantial implications on the brands positioning.

REFERENCES: Wayne D. Hoyer, Deborah J. Macinnis. Consumer Behavior. Cengage learning, 2009 Trout, J., (1969) ""Positioning" is a game people play in todays me-too market place", Industrial Marketing, Vol.54, No.6, (June 1969), pp.51-55.

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Ries, A. and Trout,J. Positioning, The battle for your mind, Warner Books - McGraw-Hill Inc., New York, 1981. Trout, J. and Rivkin, S. (1996) The New Positioning : The latest on the worlds #1 business

strategy, McGraw Hill, New York, 1996, ISBN 0-07-065291-0

David Chapin Crafting a clear, effective Positioning Statement for your life science brand The Marketing of Science Vol. 1, No. 6, 05/15/2009 Alice M. Tybout, Tim Calkins. Kellogg on branding: the marketing faculty of the Kellogg School of Management. Kellogg School of Management, John Wiley and sons.2005 (Calkins & Tybout, 12): Format and terminology for presenting a brands position, vary by company, but certain components are generally viewed as critical:
1. A concise account of the targeted consumers in terms of some identifying characteristics, such

as demographics. These target characteristics are usually chosen on account of category and brand usage.
2. A statement of the targets goal that will be served by consuming the brand, commonly

referred to as the frame of reference. The frame of reference can be useful in guiding the choice of targets, identify situations in which the brand might be used and define relevant competitors. Hence the frame of reference used by Subway is fast-food restaurant, for positioning itself as a fast-food restaurant chain, just as McDonalds.

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referred to as the point of difference. The nutritional information posted in stores and printed on napkins provided a reason to believe Subways assertion that it offered healthier fast food than its competitors (pg.18).
4. Supporting evidence for claims related to the frame of reference and point of difference,

referred to as reasons to believe. This final element is more important when the claims are relatively abstract These items may be represented in a formal positioning statement.