1 Amity Business School POSITIONING : POSITIONING : The Battle The Battle for Your Mind for Your Mind
Nov 01, 2014
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Amity Business School
POSITIONING :POSITIONING :The Battle for Your The Battle for Your
MindMind
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Amity Business School
A concept so simple,A concept so simple,people have difficulty in understandingpeople have difficulty in understanding
how powerful it is!how powerful it is!
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Amity Business School
What is Positioning ?What is Positioning ?• 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
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Positioning
ColgateIs
Protection
GilletteIs
QualityLUXIs
Glamour
AXEIs
Sexual Attraction
Pond’s DFTIs
Confidence
ExamplesExamples
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Brand Identity and Brand Image
Brand Positioning
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“To position a product/service in the minds of consumers
relative to competitors”
Ries and Trout
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A ‘reason to be’
“The brand has to be distinctive, relevant and appealing to its target
audience”
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Amity Business School
Positioning• Positioning refers to ‘how organizations want their
consumers to see their product’ • Positioning = Segmentation + Differentiation• Slotting your product in the consumer’s mind.
– Who am I? Why buy me?
“Positioning starts with the product….But Positioning is not what you do to the product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect” - Ries and Trout
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Why is Positioning Required ?Why is Positioning Required ?The assault on our mind…• The media explosion• The product explosion• The advertising explosion
• So little message gets through that you ignore the sender and concentrate on the receiver
• Consumers only accept what is consistent with prior knowledge or experience
• Very difficult to change the perception once formed
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How it is done…How it is done…• The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to be first
– Xerox, Kodak, Polaroid, Sun TV, The Hindu
• 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
• Even if you are not first, be the first to claim a unique position in the mind of the consumer– Miller Lite – first lite beer and Beck’s Beer – first beer popular in
Germany
• In the positioning era, you must, however, be first to get into the prospect’s mind
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• 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
How it is done…How it is done…
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Brand Positioning : Complan Complan for what?
• Enriched with 23 vital nutrients in right quantity and proportion essential for healthy growth
Complan for whom? • A brand for growing children
Complan for when? • Higher nutrition needs
Packaging • Complan Boy/Complan Girl
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Brand Positioning : Complan
“Complete planned food”
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Boost for what? • For fitness and health
Boost for whom? • For the young and the sporty Kapil Dev, Sachin
Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag Boost for when?
• Whenever and wherever energy is needed Packaging
• Tall cylindrical straight jar that symbolizes athleticism and fitness
Brand Positioning : Boost
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“Boost is the secret of my
energy”
Brand Positioning : Boost
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Bournvita for what?• For nutrition and health
Bournvita for whom?• For a growing kid who is healthy, intelligent, energetic
and glowing Bournvita for when?
• Everyday to ensure you are energetic throughout the day
Packaging • A tall cylindrical straight jar that reflect energy,
enthusiasm and vigour
Brand Positioning : Bournvita
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Brand Positioning : Bournvita
“Poshan bhi swaad bhi”
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Positioning of a leaderPositioning of a leader• Do not boast of being number 1, implies insecurity
about leadership (Coke – “the real thing”) • Single Position Strategy – Each brand occupying a
single unchanging position in the mind of the customer– Cheaper to introduce new brands– Introduce new brands instead of changing existing – Safari
and Sumo• Change is inevitable and leader must be willing to
embrace change.
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Positioning of a followerPositioning of a follower
• It is always better to be first and establish leadership• If the product is not first, then it must find an
unoccupied position– “Munch ka crunch Mahaan” – Chocolate with a crunch– “Avis is only No. 2 in rent-a-car, so why go with us? We try
harder.”
• A product that seeks to be everything to everyone will end being nothing to everyone
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‘‘You concentrateYou concentrateon the perceptions of the on the perceptions of the
prospect, not the reality of the prospect, not the reality of the product’product’
- Al Ries & Jack Trout- Al Ries & Jack Trout
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‘‘It’s difficult to change behaviour, It’s difficult to change behaviour, but easy to work with it’but easy to work with it’
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• 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…What you need…
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GuidelinesGuidelines• 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
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GuidelinesGuidelines
• Keep the positioning up-do-date– Give as careful consideration to change as you did to the
original statement
• Look for a Key InsightKey Insight!– An ‘Accepted Consumer Belief‘Accepted Consumer Belief’’
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What is Key Insight?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
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Key InsightKey Insight‘‘I wish to get married I wish to get married to a handsome prince’to a handsome prince’
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Key InsightKey Insight‘‘Fragrance of my current talc does not last long Fragrance of my current talc does not last long and I miss opportunities to enjoy life’and I miss opportunities to enjoy life’
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Key InsightKey Insight‘‘Soap leaves my skin Soap leaves my skin feeling dry and tight’feeling dry and tight’
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More on 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
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More on Key Insight…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
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Proper Positioning• Proper positioning
– Clarifies what the Brand is all about
– How it is both unique and similar to competitive brands
– Why customers should purchase and use the Brand
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In order to Position a Brand…
• …you must decide :-• Who the Target Consumer is
– Who your main competitors are– How the Brand is similar to your
competitors– How the Brand is different from your
competitors• Where do you get this information?
– Your BRAND INVENTORY!!
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Communicate category membershipThis is the “frame of reference”, where
customers can activate what they know about the category and how apply it.
• How?– Communicate category benefits– Compare your product to exemplars– Rely on product descriptor
How do I begin to Position my Brand?
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The 3C’s of PositioningThe 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
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And then…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 name is a knife that cuts the mind to let the brand message inside’the brand message inside’
– Ries & TroutRies & Trout
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FOCUS OF POSITIONING
• Attributes and benefits of the product• Competition• Product user• Product use or application• Product class• Cultural symbols
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• Identify Competitors.• Determine most important attributes
consumers use in choosing a brand.• Determine consumers’ perceptions of
competitors.• Determine perceptions of your brand• What is the ideal brand for your market
segments?• Assess best positioning strategy• Track image of brand over time
STEPS IN POSITIONING
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Brand Positioning
Brand Positioning– Brand positioning is all about identifying
the optimal location in our customers’ minds for our Brand and our competitors.
– Proper positioning makes it easier to facilitate understanding of our Brand.
• Taken to its’ logical conclusion, you might think of the Principle as an indicator of a brand’s position.
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First Steps….
• The first step is to identify and establish Brand positioning and brand values (Keller)
• Positioning is the foundation for creating and fostering the desired knowledge and perceptions of your customers– remember our 3 types of associations in memory?– We can really only manage one (positive), can
respond to a second (negative), and have no control over the third (idiosyncratic)
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Identifying and establishing Brand Positioning
The Integrated Brand Model– Six elements that define a brand
• Unified• Leverage each other• Brand Drivers a function of Organization Drivers
– These six elements serve as a “roadmap” to our Brand Equity model
• At every step, we can figure out what to do from our Brand and Organization Drivers
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Brand Positioning Guiding Principles…. 1. A brand's positioning should be updated every three to
five years, or as often as needed to update the company's overall growth strategy.
2. Positioning should drive all of an organization's brand strategies, as well as revenue and profit streams.
3. Senior management has to lead the charge in implementing a brand's positioning.
4. Employees, not advertising agencies, bring a brand positioning to life.
5. A strong brand positioning is customer driven and fits with customer perceptions of the brand.
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• Points of Parity?
The frame in which we are competing!
E.g. Subways Dove
Positioning - The Process….
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POP and POD
• Points-of-difference –unique brand values
• Desirable• Deliverable• Points-of-parity–shared brand values• Necessary• Competitive
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Nuts and Bolts• How do I decide on my PODs and POPs?• POPs
– Analysis of category• What attributes do all of my competitors have? I probably
need to have those, or my competitors automatically have a POD
• POPs get you included in category• PODs are more difficult
– Don’t use PODs that are product centric (dominate competition) but customer centric (uniquely address need of customer)
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POP and POD• POD (Point of Difference)
– Strong, favorable, unique brand associations– May be any kind of attribute or benefit
• Two types of PODs– Attribute Based
• Functional, performance related differences– Image Based
• Affective, experiential, brand image related differences
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POP and POD
• POP (Point of Parity)– Associations that are shared with other brands– Two types– Category: attributes that are required to include your
product as a member of that category– Competitive: POP that negate your competitors PODs
• POPs can be “good enough”, but PODs should be “superior
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POP AND POD: BMW over the years
1971
19751985
1991
• International• Desirability
• Fun to drive• Economical
• Affluence, exclusivity• Fun to drive
• Affluence, exclusivity • Fun to drive
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Establish POP and POD in marketplace
• Difficulty: Many attributes that make up POP and PODs are negatively opposed
– Low price vs. High quality– Tastes Great vs. Less filling
• Separate the attributes• Leverage equity in another entity• Redefine the relationship
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Brand Positioning Statement
For women ages 25-55, Loreal Revitalift Anti-wrinkle and firming cream reduces facial wrinkles and firms your skin.
NO REASON WHY!
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Positioning Strategies
• Product Attribute or Benefit approach• Price-Quality approach• User approach• Product category approach• Competitor approach
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Product Attribute or Benefit approach
• Volvo stands for ‘safety’• BMW for ‘performance’ • Mercedes for ‘luxury’• Dermi Cool (prickly heat powder that cools)
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Positioning Strategies USER APPROACH
• Loreal with Aishwarya Rai, Revlon with Cindy Crawford etc.
• The Marlboro Man, Thums up is also trying to reinforce its ‘for grown ups’ image by using a ‘macho’ celebrity route (Akshay Kumar).
PRICE_QUALITY APROACH
• Baja Auto: “Value-for-money, for
years”. • Zenith Computers: “MNC quality, Indian
price.”
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Amity Business SchoolPositioning Strategies
PRODUCT CATEGORY APPROACH
• Diet beers (from kingfisher) and ice beers (from United Breweries) as against the regular beer.
COMPETITOR APPROACH
• Captain Cook (free flow vs. Tata Salt)
• Savlon (does not sting vs. Dettol)
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Thank You