Brand Positioning

The essence of brand positioning

Dr Uma P Jaidev,
VIT Business School,
VIT University
• Name few global automobile brands?
• Associate a word with each brand
• BMW – Driving Performance
• Entered US 1962, in 1974, 11th largest selling European brand
• In 1975, launched the campaign, “The Ultimate Driving Machine”
• Largest selling luxury brand in US and then globe, followed by Merc, AUDI
• Mercedes- Prestige
• Volvo- Safety
• Audi – ?
• Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning "Being Ahead through Technology".
• Chevrolet -?
• ‘Chevrolet runs deep’
• It’s a large, small, cheap, and expensive car or truck. In other words, it’s everything . . . And nothing.
• GM which owned Chevrolet went bankrupt in 2009 and had to be rescued by the US Govt.
Halo effect of positioning
• Own one word, and the consumers are likely to give you many other
words
Leadership Position
• What do they own?
• They own the category itself
• Once a brand owns the leadership positions, they can hold it for decades, if
not for centuries !!
• Eg. Soft drink market
• Local brands put together increased their value share in the Rs 20,000-crore-plus
non-alcoholic ready-to-drink retail beverages market to 24% last year, which is
almost half the size of industry leader Coca-Cola’s 49.9% share and well ahead of
PepsiCo's 19.6%. (Nielsen research,2019)

Source:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/regional-drink
-brands-grew-at-twice-the-rate-of-pepsi-coca-cola/articleshow/74218961.cms?utm
_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
The first mover advantage?
Sperry Rand –The UNIVAC
IBM
Apple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfq
w8nhUwA
The issue of focus
• Burroughs, Data General, Digital Equipment, IBM, Sperry, and Wang.
• Dell
• Introduced 9 years after the first PC hit the market
• 2006, Dell- 17.1, HP-17 % Market share
• Recently, HP 17.2, Dell 12.1 % Market share
The opposite position
• Pepsi (1893) and Coca Cola • Better” is a very difficult concept
(1886) to communicate to consumers.
• Red bull and Monster
• Monster’s market cap is $11.4
billion – Introduced in 2002
The role of brand name in positioning
• Monster
• 16 oz cans Vs 8.3 ounce can of Red bull
• Hansen Beverage Corp. became Monster Beverage Corp.
• Boost
If you are not the market leader , having a strong position adds to the
brand power which can challenge leaders
Positioning

• A “position,” is the verbalization of the empty hole your brand will be

trying to fill in the prospect’s mind

• A position that takes into consideration not only its own strength and
weaknesses, but those of its competitors as well

• You don’t start with the brand, but with the mind of the consumer
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki1JFhuzIXo