This document discusses different product positioning strategies including using product characteristics or customer benefits, the price-quality approach, use or application approach, product-user approach, product-class approach, cultural symbol approach, competitor approach, brand positioning strategy, and corporate positioning strategy. Some key points are that positioning can be done based on physical or pseudo-physical product characteristics, benefits, price vs quality, intended user, cultural symbols, or in comparison to competitors. The goal is to conceptually position the product or company in the target consumer's mind.

2. Product positioning strategies
Presented by

5. Different types of strategies to positioning the
products
i. Using product characteristics or customer benefits
ii. The price-quality approach
iii. The use or applications approach
iv. The product-user approach
v. The product-class approach
vi. The cultural symbol approach
vii. The competitor approach
Viii. Brand positioning strategy
iX. Corporate positioning

6. i. Using product characteristics or
customer benefits:
• In this case, segmentation is done keeping in mind the
product characteristics or customer benefits.
• Sometimes, a new product is positioned with respect
to a product characteristic that competitors have
ignored. BenQ was positioned as a provider of
morphing-enabled mobile pictures, a feature
absolutely new in the market. Sometimes a product
attempts to position itself along two or more product
characteristics simultaneously. For example, Mahindra
& Mahindra Scorpio was positioned as both reliable
and trendy MUV.

7. a. Physical characteristics:
• These are the most objective criteria and can be
measured on some physical scale such as temperature,
colour intensity, distance, strength of fragrance etc.
b. Pseudo-physical characteristics:
• These reflect physical properties that are not easily
measured. The examples are spiciness, type of
fragrance, shininess, creaminess etc.
c. Benefits:
• These refer to advantages that promote the well being
of the consumer. Examples are thirst quenching,
hunger satisfying, not harming the skin etc.

8. ii. The price-quality approach:
• This approach justifies various price-quality
categories of the products. Manufacturers
deliberately attempt to offer more in terms of
service, features or performance in case of
certain products known as Premium products and
in return, they charge higher price, partly to cover
higher costs and partly to help communicate the
fact they are of higher quality. On the other hand,
there are some products known as mass
products, where the main matter оf concern is
price keeping a minimum quality standard
commitment.

9. iii. The use or applications approach:
• Another way to position is to consider the use
or application. One good example is Itch
Guard skin ointment (cream base) from Paras
Pharmaceuticals, which has been positioned
as an Over The Counter (OTC) medicine (i.e.
the medicine that does not require
prescription) to “relieve sweat itch due to
INTERTRIGO”.

10. iv. The product-user approach
• This deals with positioning a product keeping
in mind a specific user or a class of users.
Cosmetics brands like Revlon, L’Oreal or Lakme
position themselves targeting fashion-
conscious women.

11. v. The product-class approach
• Some products need to make critical
positioning decisions that involve product-
class associations. For example, Nescafe Bru
positioned itself as instant coffee.

12. vi. The cultural symbol approach
• Many companies use deeply entrenched
cultural symbols to differentiate their brands
form their competitors. The use of a character
named Gattu by Asian Paints helps them to
position itself as a brand that is always ready
to help, quick in decision-making and very
much young and contemporary.

13. vii. The competitor approach
• The positioning can be made with an explicit or
implicit frame of reference of one or more
competitors. There are 2 reasons behind this:
• a. The competitor may have a firm, well-defined
image developed over many years and this image
can be used as a bridge to help to communicate
another image referenced to it. It is like when you
give your address, you mention some well known
landmarks like bank, office, school etc.

14. continued
• b. Sometimes it is not only important how good
the consumers think about you, but also it is
important that they believe you are better that a
given competitor.
• The very good example can be found in
newspapers’ and magazines’ market, where the
newspaper like Dainik Jagran or magazine like
Business World compare themselves with
competitors like Punjab Kesari or Business Today
respectively in terms of circulation and
readership.

15. Viii. Brand positioning strategy
• brand positioning is defined as the conceptual
place you want to own in the target
consumer’s mind — the benefits you want
them to think of when they think of your
brand. An effective brand positioning strategy
will maximize customer relevancy and
competitive distinctiveness, in maximizing
brand value.

16. continued
• There are a variety of ways to position a brand, and it’s
useful to consider brand positioning examples to
illustrate how these can be effective. Perhaps the most
common approach is positioning on a category or
product benefit, which can be particularly effective if
your brand is already the category leader, or viable
“white space” benefits exist.
• Other alternatives include positioning the product and
the consumer, positioning how the company does
business and positioning directly against the
competitor. Here are some brand positioning examples
(using brand taglines associated with the positioning
essence).

17. iX. Corporate positioning
• Effective positioning creates a clear corporate
identity in the minds of customers and can
help increase sales and profitability. When you
develop a positioning strategy that clearly
differentiates your company from
competitors, you can provide customers with
compelling reasons to buy from you.
Implementing such a strategy is a key to being
able to set the prices you want and achieve
long-term goals.