Published by Amir Jabbari, the document introduces three unconventional positioning strategies in marketing which are Stealth Positioning, Breakaway Positioning, and Reverse Positioning. These unconventional positioning strategies help companies to differentiate their offering form the crowd.

1. D E S T I N Y O R F R E E W I L L ?
Unconventional Positioning Strategies
The Choice is Yours!
Amir Jabbari

2. Is PLC Your Destiny?
One of the most well known frameworks in marketing is the
Product Lifecycle or PLC in short. Chances are that you have
stumbled upon the framework several times in different books.
Amir Jabbari
In very simple terms, PLC states that a product will pass
different stages with differing sales and return potentials.
In the next pages these different stages along with their
characteristics have been explicated.
Figure 1.1 Product Life Cycle Stages

3. Different Stages of PLC
As illustrated in figure 1.1, PLC is composed of 5 stages. You
may have come across the PLC in other references where
there was only 4 stage and it is totally OK.
The proponents of the PLC model believe that any product will
pass these stages regardless of the industry or the market but
the timing is different based on certain characteristics.
The 5 stages are as follows:
1- Development:
At this stage, the product has not yet been introduced in the
market and the company is spending a lot of money on R&D
and product development while there is no income for them.
2- Introduction:
At this stage, the product has just been launched and since the
awareness for the category and the product itself is low, the
company is still having negative return, because the sales level
is low but the promotion costs are very high.
Amir Jabbari

4. Different Stages of PLC
3- Growth:
At this stage, the awareness for the product has increased and
more and more people are buying the product. The company is
starting to make a profit by hitting the break even point. The
competitors are entering the market as well.
4- Maturity and Saturation:
The sales are starting to stagnate at this level. The market has
become so competitive that some players are starting to leave
the market. The company might try to lower its prices, hoping
that they can attract some new sales.
5- Decline:
The product is being replaced by substitutes. Most of the
players are leaving the market now. The sales are declining on
a regular basis and the chances of keeping the product alive
are dismal.
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5. Destiny or Free Will?
The stages introduced earlier, can be likened to the stages
people go through in their life.
We all like to stay at the growth stage because there is nothing
more exciting than the feeling of moving forward and getting
stronger and improving.
What would you choose?
Amir Jabbari

6. Do you want to be old or young?

7. Unconventional Positioning Strategies
The three unconventional positioning strategies that are
introduced below, are the tools that can help you as a
marketer to bypass the introductory stage or reverse back
from saturation to growth.
Amir Jabbari
Stealth positioning:
1.
The goal is to move the product form the introduction to the
growth stage.
2. Reverse Positioning:
This positioning is useful, for marketers to move their
products from the maturity and saturation back to the growth
stage.
3.Break Away Positioning:
This positioning is similar to the reverse positioning as it tries
to move the product from saturation to growth.

8. Stealth Positioning
Introduction is a costly stage for businesses, because they
have to spend a lot on raising awareness for their product as
well as the product category.
Some consumers may resist the product category and it
means the company has to spend way more to convince the
public of the product and product category's benefits and
convert them to customers.
Amir Jabbari
Through stealth positioning, marketers position their product
as a known and loveable category. For example Nintendo did
not position its Nintendo WII console as a new high graphic
game console, rather it was positioned as a family
entertainment system.
Another company that made
prominent use of Stealth
Positioing was Sony. When
they decided to enter the
home robot market, they
though it would be very
costly to introduce the
category in that way.
So what they did was to position their AIBO product category
as a pet. A pet is product category that everyone knows and
loves.

9. Everyone knows what a pet is
and they love it

10. Reverse Positioning
One way companies use to remain competitive is to add more
and more features to their product hoping to make them more
appealing to others. The aftermath of such a strategy is that
the products become stuff with so many features once they
reach the maturity stage.
Amir Jabbari
So one way that highly innovative companies use is that they
remove most of the features, add maybe one or two that is
highly distinctive. The end result is that the product becomes
highly different from other competitors in the market with
highly lower prices.
IKEA is one of the best examples for using this positioning
strategy. While every other furniture retailer is trying to
improve by adding more service staff, delivery, customization,
etc. IKEA has removed all these features and offers stylish and
cheap furniture to people.
Southwest airline is another
prominent example. The airline
removed lots of services and
amenities found in other
airlines. The end result is a
new product category with a
highly low price comparable to
bus or train.

11. An airline that can transport me
with the cost of a bus is not an
ordinary airline.

12. Breakaway Positioning
Through breakaway positioning, the marketer tries to
associate the product to another category. It might be that the
current product category is highly saturated or competitive
and that they cannot compete in that category.
A product category is established through the use of product
design, pricing, communications, sales channels, etc.
Marketers might manipulate these marketing mix elements to
displace their product category from the current one and move
it to a new one.
One of the good examples is the Samsung Galaxy Note series.
Through the use of product design and marketing
communications, Samsung has displaced this product from
the mobile phones category and it is considered a hybrid
pocketable laptop-mobile phone.
Amir Jabbari
Another brand that used this positioning strategy in a clever
manner was Swatch. The handwatch category became so
competitive and saturated with the emergence of Japanese
watches in the market. So what did Swatch do?
Through manipulating almost all of the marketing mix, they
displaced their product from handwatch category and
positioned it as a fashion accesory.

13. Why just have one watch, when you can buy
multiple Swatches to match with your outfit?

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Amir Jabbari
D E S T I N Y O R F R E E W I L L ?
Unconventional Positioning Strategies