Brand Positioning

In marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.

Re-positioning involves changing the identity of a product, relative to the identity of competing products, in the collective minds of the target market.

De-positioning involves attempting to change the identity of competing products, relative to the identity of your own product, in the collective minds of the target market.

The original work on Positioning was consumer marketing oriented, and was not as much focused on the question relative to competitive products.

The growth of high-tech marketing may have had much to do with the shift in definition towards competitive positioning.

Product positioning process

Generally, the product positioning process involves:

1. Defining the market in which the product or brand will compete (who the relevant buyers are)
2. Identifying the attributes (also called dimensions) that define the product 'space'
3. Collecting information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each product on the relevant attributes
4. Determine each product's share of mind
5. Determine each product's current location in the product space
6. Determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes (referred to as an ideal vector)
7. Examine the fit between:
• The position of your product
• The position of the ideal vector
8. Position.

The process is similar for positioning your company's services. Services, however, don't have the physical attributes of products - that is, we can't feel them or touch them or show nice product pictures. So you need to ask first your customers and then yourself, what value do clients get from my services? How are they better off from doing business with me? Also ask: is there a characteristic that makes my services different?

Write out the value customers derive and the attributes your services offer to create the first draft of your positioning. Test it on people who don't really know what you do or what you sell, watch their facial expressions and listen for their response. When they want to know more because you've piqued their interest and started a conversation, you'll know you're on the right track.

Positioning concepts

More generally, there are three types of positioning concepts:

1. Functional positions
• Solve problems
• Provide benefits to customers
• Get favorable perception by investors (stock profile) and lenders
2. Symbolic positions
• Self-image enhancement
• Ego identification
• Belongingness and social meaningfulness
• Affective fulfillment
3. Experiential positions
• Provide sensory stimulation
• Provide cognitive stimulation

Measuring the positioning

Positioning is facilitated by a graphical technique called perceptual mapping, various survey techniques, and statistical techniques like multi dimensional scaling, factor analysis, conjoint analysis, and logit analysis

Repositioning a company

In volatile markets, it can be necessary - even urgent - to reposition an entire company, rather than just a product line or brand. Take, for example, when Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suddenly shifted from investment to commercial banks. The expectations of investors, employees, clients and regulators all need to shift, and each company will need to influence how these perceptions change. Doing so involves repositioning the entire firm.

This is especially true of small and medium-sized firms, many of which often lack strong brands for individual product lines. In a prolonged recession, business approaches that were effective during healthy economies often become ineffective and it becomes necessary to change a firm's positioning. Upscale restaurants, for example, which previously flourished on expense account dinners and corporate events, may for the first time need to stress value as a sale tool.

Repositioning a company involves more than a marketing challenge. It involves making hard decisions about how a market is shifting and how a firm's competitors will react. Often these decisions must be made without the benefit of sufficient information, simply because the definition of "volatility" is that change becomes difficult or impossible to predict.