Positioning Daniel Rogers Malgorzata Puszczynski

What is Positioning? Positioning: Differentiating a brand in customers’ minds over and against competitors in terms of attributes and benefits that the brand does and does not offer. Simply put, positioning is the process of developing a strategy for “staking out turf” or “filling a slot” in the mind of target customers.

Positioning has traditionally been done based on attributes and benefits, quality and price, use or user, and the competitor; while recent global marketing campaigns have been focused on global consumer culture positioning, local consumer culture positioning, and foreign consumer culture positioning.

Positioning by Attribute or Benefit Exploits a particular attribute, benefit, or feature of the product being sold. Economy, Reliability, and Durability are frequently used positions that use product attributes, benefits and features.

Who do you think of when “cheap food” is mentioned? Which car company is the safest? Which batteries last the longest? Most consumers have immediate answers to these questions due to the positioning of companys’ products in their minds.

Positioning by Quality and Price Focuses on positioning a brand as a superpremium entity. Rolex, Rolls Royce, and Grey Goose Vodka all position themselves in customers minds as the best there is of their type of product.

Positioning by the Use or User Focuses on what amazing thing the product can be used for or who is using the product? What do the professionals use? For example: – Donovan McNabb’s mother depended on Campbell’s soup to turn her son into a star quarterback. or – Hospitals only depend on our battery to run back up power to their heart monitors.

Positioning by Competitor One company implicitly or explicitly refers to competitors to position its own product. For example: – Alltel circle of friends commercial. or – Burger King showing a small hamburger patty referring to McDonald’s.

Global Consumer Culture Positioning Indentifies the brand as a symbol of a particular global culture or segment. High tech products- products associated with high levels of customer involvement. Consumers have specialized needs or interests & rational buying motives. High tech brands are usually evaluated in terms of their performance against established objective standards.

Marketing communications need to be informative & emphasize performance related attributes & features. Consumers are generally energized by emotional motives rather than rational ones.

Foreign Culture Positioning Associates the brands users, use occasions or production origins with a foreign country or culture.

Local Consumer Culture Positioning Associates the brand with local cultural meanings, reflects the local cultures norms, portrays the brand as consumed by local people in the national culture or depicts the product as locally produced for local consumers.