Brand Positioning

A concept so simple,
people have difficulty understanding
how powerful it is!
 What…
 Positioning is owning a piece of
consumer’s mind

 Positioning is not what you do to

a product
 It’s what you do to the mind of the
prospect

 You position the product in the

prospect’s mind
 ‘It’s incorrect to call it Product
Positioning’ – Ries & Trout
Brand Positioning
 Is at the heart of the marketing strategy

 “. . . the act of designing the company’s offer and image so that it occupies a
distinct and valued place in the target customer’s minds.”
Philip Kotler
Determining a frame of
reference
 What are the ideal points-of-parity and points-of-
difference brand associations vis-à-vis the
competition?
 Marketers need to know:
 Who the target consumer is
 Who the main competitors are
 How the brand is similar to these competitors
 How the brand is different from them
Target Market

 A market is the set of all actual and potential

buyers who have sufficient interest in, income for,
and access to a product.
 Market segmentation divides the market into
distinct groups of homogeneous consumers who
have similar needs and consumer behavior, and
who thus require similar marketing mixes.
 Market segmentation requires making tradeoffs
between costs and benefits.
Example of the toothpaste
market
 Four main segments:
1. Sensory: Seeking flavor and product
appearance
2. Sociables: Seeking brightness of teeth
3. Worriers: Seeking decay prevention
4. Independent: Seeking low price
Criteria for Segmentation

 Identifiability: Can we easily identify the

segment?
 Size: Is there adequate sales potential in the
segment?
 Accessibility: Are specialized distribution outlets
and communication media available to reach the
segment?
 Responsiveness: How favorably will the segment
respond to a tailored marketing program?
Nature of Competition

 Deciding to target a certain type of consumer

often defines the nature of competition
 Do not define competition too narrowly
 Ex: a luxury good with a strong hedonic
benefit like stereo equipment may compete as
much with a vacation as with other durable
goods like furniture
Points-of-Parity
and Points-of-Difference
 Points-of-difference (PODs) are attributes or
benefits that consumers strongly associate with a
brand, positively evaluate, and believe that they
could not find to the same extent with a
competitive brand.
 Points-of-parity associations (POPs), on the other
hand, are not necessarily unique to the brand but
may in fact be shared with other brands.
Choosing POP’s & POD’s
 Desirability criteria (consumer perspective)
 Personally relevant
 Distinctive and superior
 Believable and credible
 Deliverability criteria (firm perspective)
 Feasible

 Profitable

 Pre-emptive, defensible, and difficult to attack

 Core Brand Values
 Set of abstract concepts or phrases that characterize the five to
ten most important dimensions of the mental map of a brand
 Relate to points-of-parity and points-of-difference
 Mental map  Core brand values  Brand mantra
Core Brand Values
Mental Map
Core Brand Values
Mental Map
Core Brand Values
Mental Map
 Mental Map Seminars and
Scholarship webinars
TARC
Research and
Blue publications

Good academics, Administration

great faculties

No campus
Bot tola

Clubs
Prangon

Grades Alumni Friends

Onnesha
Positioning Statement Format

 The language of a well crafted positioning usually

takes this general form:

“To (target market), Brand X is the (definition of

business) that provides you with (stated point of
difference/key benefit)”
Examples

 Colgate is Protection
 Lux is Glamour
 Pond’s Dream Flower Talc is
Confidence
 Axe is Sexual Attraction
 Gillette is Quality
Why…
The assault on our mind…
 The media explosion
 The product explosion
 The advertising explosion
How…
 The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to be
first
 Xerox, Kodak, Polaroid, Sun TV, Grameen Phone
 If you didn’t get into the mind of your prospect
first, then you have a positioning problem
 Better to be first than be best
 In the positioning era, you must, however, be first
to get into the prospect’s mind
 How…

 The basic approach is not to create something new

or different, but manipulate what’s already in the
mind
 To find a unique position, you must ignore
conventional logic
 Conventional logic says you find concept inside
product
 Not true; look inside prospect’s mind

 You won’t find an uncola idea inside 7-up; you

find it inside cola drinker’s head
‘You concentrate
on the perceptions of the prospect, not the
reality of the product’
- Al Ries & Jack Trout
‘It’s difficult to change behavior, but
easy to work with it’
- Paco Underhill
What you need…
 Understand the role of
words and how they affect
people
 Turtle vs. Lexus

 Be careful of change
 Disney

 Need vision
 Long term / Not on
technology or fad
What you need…

 Courage
 To slug it out when others watch and wait

 Objectivity
 You need a backboard / a springboard

 Simplicity
 Not complicated or convoluted
What you need…
 Delicacy
 Unique position and appeal that’s not narrow

 Willingness to sacrifice
 Rexona wooing male and female

 Patience
 Geographical roll out / Demographic / Chronological

 Global outlook
 Taj Mahal tea
Guidelines

 Start by looking not at the product but at the

position in the market that you wish to occupy, in
relation to competition
 Think about how the brand will answer the main
consumer questions
 What will it do for me that others will not?
 Why should I believe you?

 Try to keep it short and make every word count

and be as specific as possible
 Vagueness opens the way to confused executions
Guidelines
 Keep the positioning up-do-date
 Give as careful consideration to change as you
did to the original statement

 Look for a Key Insight!

Insight
 An ‘Accepted Consumer Belief’
What is key insight?

 Key Insight is ‘seeing below the surface’ / ‘seeing

inside the consumer’

 Insight expresses the totality of all that we know

from seeing inside the consumer

 An insight is a single aspect of this that we use to

gain competitive advantage

 By identifying a specific way…

 That the brand can either solve a problem or
 Create an opportunity for the consumer
Key Insight
‘I wish to get married
to a handsome prince’
Key Insight
‘Fragrance of my current talc does not last long
and I miss opportunities to enjoy life’
Key Insight
‘Soap leaves my skin
feeling dry and tight’
Key
Insights?
Key Insights?
Key Insight?
Key Insight?
Key Insight?
Key Insight?
Key Insight?
Key Insight?
More on key insight…

 It will require two separate thoughts to be related

to each other in a new and fresh way

 Insight will generally be enduring

 Often the process will lead to several insights

 The one to use is the one that offers to be the

source of greatest competitive advantage
More on key insight…

 No need for insight to change if you have identified the

higher-order needs of consumers

 Keep asking ‘why’ to find the real need behind the obvious
insight

 Remember, the insight is always the basis for a brand’s

positioning
How to find one?
 What are the ways in which the category / brand can
improve someone’s life?
 What are the conflicting needs that people face and that
the brand can solve?
 How important is it that the product delivers? Who will
notice?
 What is standard of excellence in the category?
 With every answer you get, you need to probe deeper:
 ‘Why is that?’
The 3C’s of positioning
 Be Crystal clear
 Be Consumer-based
 Be relevant and credible to the consumer
 Write in consumer language and from consumer’s view point

 Be Competitive
 Be distinctive
 Focus on building brand elements into powerful discriminator
 Be persuasive
 Be sustainable
And then…

 The brand name!

 The name is the first point of contact between the message

and the mind

 ‘The brand name is a knife that cuts the mind to let the
brand message inside’
– Ries & Trout
Guidelines

 It’s not the goodness or badness of the name in an

aesthetic sense that determines effectiveness
 It’s the appropriateness of the same

 Name begins the positioning process, tells the prospect

what the product’s major benefit is
 Fair & Lovely
 Close Up
 Krack
 Head & Shoulders
 Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion
Checklist: Brand name
 Should be simple

 Should be acceptable in all key languages

 Should be appropriate when geographically spread

 Should be amenable for easy registration

 Brand Mantras

 An articulation of the “heart and soul” of the brand

 similar to “brand essence” or “core brand promise”
 Short three- to five-word phrases that capture the irrefutable(convincing)
essence or spirit of the brand positioning and brand values
 Considerations
 Communicate
 Simplify
 Inspire
Designing the Brand Mantra

 The term brand functions describes the nature of the product

or service or the type of experiences or benefits the brand
provides.
 The descriptive modifier further clarifies its nature.
 The emotional modifier provides another qualifier—how
exactly does the brand provide benefits, and in what way?
Designing the Brand Mantra

Emotional Descriptive Brand

Modifier Modifier Functions

Nike Authentic Athletic Performance

Fun Family Entertainment

Disney

Fun Folks Food

Designing the Brand Mantra