Crafting the brand positioning

CHAPTER 10

Building strong brands requires a keen understanding of competitors and

competition.

How to deal with competition?- Just through creatively designed and well-

executed marketing programs.

All marketing strategy is built on STP

If a company does a poor job of positioning, the market will be confused.

This is what happened when National Car Company and Alamo Rent-a-car were combined by their former parent, ANS Rental Corp.

Positioning-

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

What is the result of positioning?

the successful creation of a customer focused value

proposition

Examples of value propositionCompany and product

Target customers

Benefits Value Proposition

A - chicken Quality-conscious consumers of chicken

Tenderness More tender golden chicken at a moderate price

B – station wagon

Safety – conscious families

Durability and safety

The safest, most durable wagon in which your family can ride

C - pizza Convenience – minded pizza lovers

Delivery Speed and good quality

A good hot pizza, delivered promptly to your door, at a moderate price

Deciding on a positioning requires1. Determining a competitive frame of

reference – a starting point is to determine a category membership

2. Identifying the ideal points-of-difference brand associations

3. Identifying the ideal points-of-parity a. category POP b. competitive POP

http://www.digiorno.com/

To understand better category POP

Try to imagine a travel agency without making hotel reservations, without

providing advice about leisure packaging. Is it an easy task one?

Miller Lite BeerAdvertising company had 2 goals:1.Establishing category point-of-parity with

competitors2.At the same time creating a point-of-parity

“Everything you’ve always wanted in a beer and less…”

POP vs. POD

Often the key to positioning is not so much achieving a POD as achieving POP

Marketers must inform consumers of a brand’s category membership.

But what should consumers know before it?

Initial advertising - on creating brand awareness

Subsequent advertising – on crafting the brand image

Ways to convey a brand’s category membershipAnnouncing category benefitsComparing to exemplars

At which level to anchor the brand’s POD?

BRAND ATTRIBUTES – the least desirable level to position

BRAND BENEFITS ORBRAND VALUES?

Dove soapOne quarter cleansing creamSofter skinIts value of being more attractive

What level is the buyer more interested in?

Research has shown that brands can sometimes be successfully differentiated

on irrelevant attributes.

POP and POD are negatively correlated

Differentiation strategiesCompetitive advantageLeverageable advantageConsumer advantage

Marketers can differentiate brands on the basis of many variables

SOUTHWEST AIRLINE – Dallas-based company

Low pricesReliable servicesHealthy sense of humor

First-come – first-served open seating

o PERSONNEL DIFFERENTIATION

o CHANNEL DIFFERENTIATION

o IMAGE DIFFERENTIATION

PLC1. Products have a limited life2. Product sales pass through distinct

stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities and problems to the seller

3. Profits rise and fall at different stages of a PLC

4. Products require different marketing: financial, manufacturing, purchasing and human resource strategies in each life-cycle stage

not all products exhibit a bell-shaped PLC

Growth-slump-maturity patternCycle-recycle patternScalloped pattern

Special categories of PLC1. Style

2.Fashion a. distinctivness b. emulation c. mass fashion d. decline

3. Fad

Introduction StageSales growth ProfitsPromotional expendituresCostsPrices

Pioneers’ advantageSecond mover advantage

Growth stageSalesEarly adopters of productAdditional consumersNew competitorsDistribution

To sustain to improve product quality, features, styling, add new models and enter new market segments.

Maturity stageSales growthLasts longer or shorter than other stages?

MODIFICATION

MARKET M. PRODUCT M.

To work with 2 factors that make up

sales volume – number of brand users and usage

rates among users

• Quality improvement• Feature improvement• Style

improvement

Decline StageSalesIncreased domestic and foreign competitionProfit

What products experienced slow decline and which once rapid decline?

Market Evolution1. Emergence – before a market

materializes, it exists as a latent market.Diffused-preference marketSingle-niche, multiple niche or mass-market

strategy?1. Growth2. MaturityMarket fragmentationMarket consolidation1. Decline

HomeWork assignments1. Name 10 examples of irrelevant attributes of a

brand from everyday life2. Choose one company that has recently introduced

a new product.A. At what stage of PLC would you put this product

and why? B. How does this company try to differentiate this

product from its competitors?C. Describe the potential PLC for one of the possible

new inventions of this company.3. Name and describe three ways for a firm to expand

the number of users of a brand.YOUR ANSWERS MUST BE TYPED AND HANDED IN ON

MAY, 23th.