Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A product can be positioned based on 2 main platforms: The Consumer and The
Competitor. When the positioning is on the basis of CONSUMER, the campaigns and
messages are always targeted to the consumer himself (the user of the product)
Peter England always campaigns their product concentrating on the consumer, the user
of its product.
Louis Philip also concentrates on this kind of campaigns.
The other kind of positioning is on basis of COMPETITION. These campaigns are
targeted towards competing with other players in the market.
Dettol television commercials always concentrate on advertisements, which show that
this product would give you more protection, then the others.
A number of positioning strategies might be employed in developing a promotional
program. The 7 such strategies are discussed below:
POSITIONING BY PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES AND BENEFITS
• Consider the example of Ariel that offers a specific benefit of cleaning even the
dirtiest of clothes because of the micro cleaning system in the product.
• Colgate offers benefits of preventing cavity and fresh breath.
• Promise, Balsara’s toothpaste, could break Colgate’s stronghold by being the first
to claim that it contained clove, which differentiated it from the leader.
• Nirma offered the benefit of low price over Hindustan Lever’s Surf to become a
success.
• Maruti Suzuki offers benefits of maximum fuel efficiency and safety over its
competitors. This strategy helped it to get 60% of the Indian automobile market.
POSITIONING BY PRICE/ QUALITY
Marketers often use price/ quality characteristics to position their brands. One way they
do it is with ads that reflect the image of a high-quality brand where cost, while not
irrelevant, is considered secondary to the quality benefits derived from using the brand.
Premium brands positioned at the high end of the market use this approach to positioning.
Another way to use price/ quality characteristics for positioning is to focus on the quality
or value offered by the brand at a very competitive price. Although price is an important
consideration, the product quality must be comparable to, or even better than, competing
brands for the positioning strategy to be effective.
Parle Bisleri – “Bada Bisleri, same price” ad campaign.
POSITIONING BY USE OR APPLICATION
Another way is to communicate a specific image or position for a brand is to associate it
with a specific use or application.
Surf Excel is positioned as stain remover ‘ Surf Excel hena!’
Also, Clinic All Clear – “Dare to wear Black”.
Motography Motorola Mobile Ad.n this ad the persona of the user of the product is been
positioned.
POSITIONING BY COMPETITOR
Onida was positioned against the giants in the television industry through this strategy,
ONIDA colour TV was launched with the message that all others were clones and only
Onida was the leader. “neighbour’s Envy, Owners Pride”.
POSITIONING BY CULTURAL SYMBOLS
An additional positioning strategy where in the cultural symbols are used to differentiate
the brands. Examples would be Humara Bajaj, Tata Tea, Ronald McDonald. Each of
these symbols has successfully differentiated the product it represents from competitors
Many a time in marketing, there comes a stage in the life of a brand when it needs to be
re-worked and relaunched to take it to a different level. This happens not only for brands
which may not be doing well but also for brands that are doing well but would like to do
better. Brands go through various stages of evolution in their life and often may need to
be restructured and repositioned, revitalised or rejuvenated to improve their sales and
market share and profits.
Before getting into the methodologies and ways of launching a new brand(or Brand
Relauncing), it is important to define the objectives for the relaunch. Some commonly
used objectives are:
Is the objective to relaunch the brand and reposition it for faster growth and market
share?
Thus, nothing is done to the product, the pricing or the distribution but the
communication and the entire repositioning exercise changes the perceived value of the
brand. The elements used would be in the area of the communication mix including the
packaging. This approach is usually followed when consumers have accepted the
product, found it affordable and available but do not want to use it because they feel it
does not match their needs or aspirations, keeping the psychographics in mind.
Another method to relaunch the brand is to change the channel and distribution strategy.
Other elements may be working but the distribution channel may be ineffective due to the
choice of in-appropriate outlets or even ineffective trade margins and marketing strategy.
This can be linked with the sales effort, sales organisation and structure.
This happens in cases where the product is accepted, its awareness is high but it is not
available. There is, therefore, wastage of advertising money.
The third way to relaunch a brand would be to revamp every element of the marketing
mix including the brand name, the product ingredients and pricing, and bring it out with a
new price and bring it out as a new avatar.
Brand Relauncing is a normal exercise but should be dealt with cautiously. If the brand is
doing well because its positioning, distribution and pricing are accepted and it is growing
as per the desired objectives, then it is recommended not to tamper with something which
is working.
Finally, it is important to say that while brand relauncing is implimented , the main
objective should be to bring it to a better level in terms of sales, market share and profit
than what its current position reflects.
Brand Image - The Image A Brand Caries
Consumers vary as to which brand attributes they see as most relevant and the importance
they attach to each attribute (brand association ). They will pay the most attention to the
attributes that deliver the sought benefits.
The market for a product can often be segmented according to the attributes that are
salient to different consumer groups. The consumer develops a set of beliefs about where
each brand stands on each attribute. These set of beliefs about the brand make up brand
image. Brand identity and brand image need to be distinguished. Identity comprises the
ways that a company aims to identify or position itself or its product. Image is the way
the public perceives the company or its products. Image is affected by many factors
beyond the company’s control.
An effective image does three things:
• It establishes the product’s character and value proposition.It conveys this
character in a distinctive way so as not to confuse it with the
competitor’simage.
• It delivers emotional power beyond a mental image.
• The image of a brand may contain different types of associations in memory:
attributes benefits and attitudes.
BRANDS ATTRIBUTE ASSOCIATIONS
These are descriptive features, which are used to characterize a product or service. The
attributes could be distinguished on the basis of how directly they are related to product
or service performance. The product related attributes are ingredients necessary for the
products performance. On product related attributes are packaging, user imagery, usage
imagery and price.
In the case of Woodland shoes the product related attributes would be: leather that
weathers, unique sole, water resistant etc. The non-product related attributes would be:
price -1500+; package-green box; user-young, rugged, tough; usage-outdoors, trekking.
BRANDS BENEFIT ASSOCIATIONS
Functional: These are the outcome of the functions performed by a product of service.
These are the intrinsic benefits of consuming a product or service.
Mercedes has the functional benefit of sophisticated and ultra modern technology.
Experiential: these accrue to the user in the form of feelings.
For Mercedes the experiential benefits will be the feeling of a smooth and comfortable
ride.
Symbolic: These are non intrinsic to the product and correspond to non-product related
benefits.
For Mercedes it will be the prestige of being a part of a select group.
BRANDS ATTITUDE ASSOCIATIONS
Attitudes determine buying decisions. They refer to overall evaluation of a concept like
person, product, object or a brand.
Brand loyalty is the ultimate goal a company sets for a branded product. A company’s
main question in relation to selling their products or services use do be: “How do I get
people to buy my product?” Nowadays companies still greatly appreciate the answer to
this question but they have also realized that getting customers is not the only thing they
need to do. In today’s rapidly moving world consumers don’t stick with products for life.
Advertisements and an increased feeling of independence have created consumers that
will switch brands or products as soon as the feel the need to do so. What company’s
look for in this consumer environment is creating a so-called brand loyalty?
Brand loyalty is a consumer’s preference to buy a particular brand in a product category.
It occurs because consumers perceive that the brand offers the right product features,
images, or level of quality at the right price. This perception becomes the foundation for a
new buying habit. Consumers initially will make a trial purchase of the brand and, after
satisfaction, tend to form habits and continue purchasing the same brand because the
product is safe and familiar
Brand loyalists have the following mindsets:
• I am committed to this brand.
• I am willing to pay a higher price for this brand over other brands.
• I will recommend this brand to others.
Loyalty Segmentation:
Loyalty segmentation helps in building strong brands. A market can usually be divided
into the following groups:
• Non customers: Those who use the competitor’s brand or are not product class
users.
• Price switchers: Those who are price switchers.
• The passively loyal: Those who buy out of habit rather than reason.
• Fence sitters: those who are indifferent between two or more brands. ( these guys
sit on the fence and watch - not bothered )
• The committed: those who are committed to our brands. (Hard Core Loyal
Customers ! These guys are brands Asset ! :) )
The challenges to improve the brand’s loyalty profile are to increase the number of
customers who are not price switchers, to strengthen the fence sitters and committed ties
to the brand and to increase the number who would pay more to use the brand or service.
Two segments where the companies generally under invest are passively loyal and the
committed customers. The passively loyal customers are often taken for granted. At the
other end of the spectrum are the highly loyal or committed customers. Firms also tend to
take this group for granted. Yet there may be significant potential to increase business
from the very loyal.
The loyal Marriott customer might be encouraged to select even more than often with a
improved portfolio of business support services such as fax machines in rooms.
Further there is a risk that loyal customers can be enticed away by a competitor if the
performance of the product or service is not improved. For these reasons firms should
avoid diverting resources from the loyal core to the non-customers and price switchers.
One approach to enhancing the loyalty of fence sitters and the committed is to develop or
strengthen their relationship with the brand.