branding and positioning

 Positioning is the act of designing a company’s
offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the
minds of the target market.
 The goal is to locate the brand in the minds of
consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm.
 A good brand positioning helps guide marketing
strategy by clarifying the brand’s essence , identifying
the goals it helps the consumer achieve , and showing
how it does so in a unique way.

 Brand Positioning is to strike a right balance between
what the brand is and what it could be.
 The result of positioning is the successful creation of
i.e. a cogent reason why the target market should buy the
product.
 Positioning requires that the marketers define and
communicate similarities and differences between their
brands and competitors.

Determining a Competitive
Frame of Reference
Identifying Optimal Points of
Difference & Points of Parity
Creating a Brand Mantra

 The competitive reference defines which other brand
competes with and therefore which brands should be
the focus of competitive analysis.
 Two important for determining the competitive frame
of reference are:
Identifying the Competitors
Analyzing the Competitors

1. Determining
 Category Membership is a product or set of products
with which a brand competes and which function as
close substitutes.
 Example:

2. Examining Competition from both and
point of view.
 An Industry is a group of firms offering a product or
class of products that are close substitutes of each
other.
Classification
of Industries
No. of Sellers
Degree of
Product
Differentiation
Entry & Exit Cost Structure Globalization
Degree of
Vertical
Integration

 Using market approach, we define competitors as
companies that satisfy same consumer need.
 Example:
 To conclude the market concept of competition reveals a
broader set of actual and potential competitors than
competition defined in just product category items.

Identifying Optimal Points-of-
Difference and Points of Parity
POINTS-OF-DIFFERENCE(PODs):
 are attributes or benefits that consumers strongly
associated with a brand, positively evaluate, and
believe they could not find to the same extent with
a competitive brand.
Eg: Apple(design, ease-of use, irreverent attitude)
Nike (performance, innovative technology and
wining)

1. Desirable to consumers:
 Consumers must see the brand association as
personally relevant to them.
 Eg: Mountain dew (more energizing than
any other soft drink)
 Channel no. 5 perfume(elegant french
perfume)
 NIVEA (wrinkle control crème)

2. Deliverable by the company
 The company must have the internal
resources and commitment to feasibly and
profitably create and maintain brand
association in the minds of consumers.
 Eg: ADM, VISA, and SAP (demonstrable
product or service performance)
 Fendi, Prada, and Hermes(fashion)

3. Differentiating from competitors
Consumers must see the brand association as
distinctive and superior to relevant
competitors.
Eg: Reliance (3G services, superior clarity and
better download speed)

POINTS-OF-PARITY(POPs)
 Are attribute or benefit associations that are
not necessarily unique to the brand but may in
fact be shared with other brands.
Two basic forms,
1. Category points-of parity
2. Competitive points-of-parity

1. Category points-of parity
They represent necessary but not sufficient
conditions for brand choice.
May change over time due to technological
advances, legal developments, or consumer
trends.
They are the “greens fees” necessary to play
the marketing game.

2. Competitive points-of-parity
Are associations designed to overcome
perceived weakness of the brand.
It may be required to either:
I. Negate competitors perceived points-of-
difference
II. Negate perceived vulnerability of the brand
as a result of its own points-of-difference

POINTS-OF PARITY V/S POINTS-
OF DIFFERENCE

Points-of-parity
To achieve a points-
of-parity on a
particular attribute or
benefit, a sufficient
number of
consumers must
believe the brand is
good enough” on that
dimension.
Points-of-difference
The brand doesn’t
literally need to be
seen as equal to
competitors, but
consumers must feel
it does well enough
on that particular
attribute.

MULTIPLE FRAMES OF
REFERENCE
When competition widens or the firm plans to
expand, the brand identify more than one or
actual competitive frame of reference.
E.g. ITC can make different frames of
reference suggesting different POPs and
PODs.

STRADDLE POSITIONING
Occasionally, the company will be able to
straddle two frames of reference.
(i) Points-Of-Parity
(ii) Points-Of-Difference
E.g. ITC- POP with personal product
manufacturers and POD with Cigarette
Manufacturers.

Choosing POPs PODs
BELIEVING IN BRAND ATTRIBUTES
(Why buy my Product/Services)

Perceptual Maps – Visual representations of
consumer perceptions and preferences.
Provides quantitative portrayals of market
situations and how consumers view different
products, service and brands.

DESIGNING BRAND MANTRA
 Brand mantras are designed with internal purpose in
mind. A brand slogan is external manifestation or
translation to creatively engage the consumers.

Three criteria for a brand mantra:
• Communicate: A good brand mantra should
define the category of business for the brand.
• Simplify: Brand mantra should be short, crisp, and
vivid in meaning.
• Inspire: ideally, it should be stake out ground that
is relevant to as many employees as possible

Two approaches in establishing a brand positioning:
1. Category membership
 Brands may be required to establish category
membership for their brand
 To tell consumers that they are part of a certain
category
 They may be associated with a category they are not
part of

 It can be a special problem for high-tech products.
e.g. “four-in-one
entertainment
solution” from Konica
failed to establish
category membership.

2. POPs and PODs
 Attributes and benefits that make up the POPs and
PODs are negatively correlated.
 E.g. Bombay dyeing, BMW

 COMMUNICATING CATEGORY MEMBERSHIP
• Three ways to convey brand’s category membership:
a) Announcing category benefit
 Fundamental reason for using a category
 e.g. Gulab-jamun in dessert category, brownie in
baked dessert category

b) Comparing to exemplars
 Well-known brands used to specify category
membership
 E.g. Tommy Hilfiger with Calvin Klein and Perry
Ellis, Adam Kimmel with Tommy Hilfiger

c) Relying on the product description
 Follows the brand name is concise means to
conveying category origin.
 E.g. ford motor co. launched a model X-Trainer

 COMMUNICATING POPS AND PODS
 Negatively correlated attributes and benefits such
as…
1. Low price vs. high quality
2. Taste vs. low calories
3. Efficacious vs. mild
4. Powerful vs. safe
5. Strong vs. refined
6. Varied vs. simple
7. Nutritious and tasty food

 Consumers want to maximize both of the negatively
correlated attributes or benefits.
e.g. Philips – Sense and simplicity

DIFFERENTIATION
STRATEGIES
 Competitive advantage is Company’s ability to
perform in one or more ways that competitors can
not match.
 Competitive advantage may be,
1. Leverageable advantage: new advantage
e.g. Microsoft
2. Customer advantage

MEANS OF DIFFERENTIATION
1. Employee differentiation:
to train employs who
provide superior customer
services.
2. Channel differentiation:
to design distribution
channel’s coverage,
expertise and prformance
more effectively to make
product easily available.

3. Image differentiation:
to craft powerful,
compelling images
according to consumer’s
social and psychological
needs.
4.Services differentiation:
to design better and faster
delivery system that
provides more effective and
efficient solutions to
consumer.
Three levels:
I. Reliability
II. Resilience
III. Innovativeness

EMOTIONAL BRANDING
Brand Positioning should have both rational
and emotional components.
Seek to build on performance
advantages to strike an emotional
chord with their customers.

Traits in Emotional Branding:
1. Strong people focused corporate culture
2. A distinctive communication style and
philosophy
3. A compelling emotional hook

Brand’s Ability
• Stories , dreams and symbols
• People draws to what they don’t knowMystery
• Keep five senses on constant alert
• New textures and other sensory stimuliSensuality
• Empathy, Passion and commitment
• Wins Intense loyaltyIntimacy

 Firm should monitor three variables when
analyzing potential threats posed by competitors
• Share of market
• Share of mind

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
TO POSITIONING
• Brand Positioning model is a structured way
• Other marketers have proposed some less
structured approaches in recent years

 BRAND NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING

Five Elements of Narrative Branding
• In terms of metaphors and words
• How consumers engage with the brand
• Visual language for brand
• The manner in which narrative is expressed
• Role the brand plays in lives of consumers

BRAND JOURNALISM:
 Larry Light CMO at McDonald's defined brand
journalism as a way to record ‘what happens to brand in
the world and create communications over a time , can
tell whole story of a brand.
 Brand journalism had been adopted by McDonald's
as a marketing technique.
 No single communication could tell the whole multi-
dimensional story of a brand , which means different
things in different regions to different people in different
situations with different needs.

Examples:
Cisco's online newsroom

CULTURAL BRANDING:
 Companies can build
iconic, leadership
brands through cultural
knowledge, strategize
according to cultural
principles and hire and
train cultural experts.

POSITIONING AND BRANDING
A SMALL BUSINESS
 Creatively conduct low-cost marketing research
 Focus on building one or two strong brands based on
one or two key association
 Employ a well-integrated set of brand elements
 Create buzz and a loyal brand community
 Leverage as many secondary associations as possible

branding and positioning

branding and positioning

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