What is Positioning
The way the product is defined by consumers on important attributes – the place the product occupies in consumers’ minds relative to competing products.
Example
when-yon think of car safety, what brand comes to mind? Volvo has positioned itself powerfully to safety.
Positioning starts with a product, a piece of merchandise, a service, a company, an institution or even a person but positioning is not about what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position products in the mind of the prospect. Thus Rolex is thought of as the world’s top watch, Coca-Cola as the world’s largest soft-drink company, Porsche as one of the world’s best sports cars, and so on. These brands own those positions and it would be hard for a competitor to steal them.
Three Positioning Strategies
- Strengthen a brand’s current position in the mind of consumers. 7-Up capitalized on not being a cola soft drink by advertising itself as the Un-cola.
- Search for a new unoccupied position that is valued by enough consumers and grab it. after recognizing that many housewives wanted a strong washing powder to treat smelly clothes, Unilever successfully launched Radion.
- Deposition or reposition the competition. Stoliclmaya vodka attacked Smirnoff and Wolfschmidt vodka by pointing out that these brands were made locally, but ‘Stolichnaya is different. Similarly, it is Russian.
Perceptual Mapping
A product positioning tool that uses multi dimensional scaling of consumers’ perceptions and preferences to portray the psychological distance between products and segments.
