Positioning (Trout Ries)

Knowledge Center

What is Positioning. Description

Positioning is a marketing method for creating the perception of a product, brand, or company identity. Starting from 1969, two young marketing guys, Jack Trout and Al Ries, wrote, spoke and disseminated to the advertising and PR world about a new concept in communications which they called positioning. The term was actually first mentioned in a paper by Jack Trout: Positioning is a game people play in today's me-too market place, Industrial Marketing, Vol.54, No. 6, June 1969, pp.51-55. Their 1981 book about Positioning: "The Battle for Your Mind" became a bestseller. Until then, advertising agencies had primarily been basing their media campaigns on internally conceived benefits of the client's product.
 

According to Trout and Ries, "positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position (place) the product in the mind of the potential buyer". Since that time in marketing, positioning is the technique in which marketers try to create an image or identity for a product, brand, or company in the perception of the target market. What matters is how potential buyers see the product. It is expressed relative to the position of competitors. Typical positioning tools include graphical perception mapping, market surveys, and certain statistical techniques.
 

Competitive Edge and Positioning

A successful positioning strategy is usually based on a sustainable competitive advantage of a company. Positioning can be based on several things, including:

• Product features

• Benefits, needs, or solutions

• Use categories

• Usage occasions

• Placing and comparing it relative to another product

• Dissociation of the product class

Three bases of positioning can be distinguished

1. Functional (solve problems, provide benefits to customers)
2. Symbolic (self-image enhancement, ego identification, belongingness and social meaningfulness, affective fulfillment)
3. Experiential (provide sensory stimulation; provide cognitive stimulation)

Steps in Product Positioning. Process

• Identify competing products

• Identify the attributes, also called dimensions, that define the product 'space'

• Collect information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each product on the relevant attributes

• Determine the share of mind of each product

• Determine the current location of each product in the product space

• Determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes. These are called: an ideal vector.

• Examine the fit between: the positions of competing products, the position of your product and the position of the ideal vector

• Select the optimum position

Three Positioning Strategies by Youngme Moon

In an HBR article of May 2005, Youngme Moon introduced three variations of Positioning that can be used to break free from Product Life Cycle thinking. Companies can change how consumers perceive them. By Positioning or often Repositioning their products in unexpected ways. Three positioning strategies that marketers use to cause a mental shift at consumers are Reverse, Breakaway, Stealth Positioning:

1. Reverse Positioning. This method removes "sacred" product attributes. Simultaneously new attributes are added that would typically be found only in a highly augmented product. For example IKEA is not delivering to your home the products which you have bought, and it offers no sales consultancy. But IKEA added: children drop-off, cafe, toys). Recommended for: Services companies.

2. Breakaway Positioning. This method associates the product with a radically different category. By manipulating the cues of consumers of how they perceive and categorize a product, a firm can change how consumers frame a product. (ex. Swatch > no longer in category Swiss Watches, but in Fashion Accessories). Recommended for Packaged Goods companies.

3. Stealth Positioning. This variant gradually interests consumers for a new offering, by hiding the product's true nature. For example Sony's AIBO robot was positioned as a lovable pet. This shifted consumer's attention away from its major limitations as a household aide. It apparently even turned elderly people into early technology adopters. Recommended for: Technology companies.

Book: Jack Trout and Al Ries - Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Forum Forum about Positioning. Start a new topic Share your knowledge or ask a question   How to Measure the Effectiveness of Positioning? In order to know how effective positioning is, positioning effectiveness should be measured. Two main groups of positioning measurements exist, namely company-based and customer-based. 1. C... 23   7 comments 🔥 NEW Points of Parity and Points of Difference WHAT ARE POPs & PODs IN POSITIONING? INTRODUCTION While launching a new product into the market or an existing product into new markets, a firm has to plan on how it wishes to position the offeri... 7   What are the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries and Trout ? Summary Another well-known publication by Ries and Trout is the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (1994): 1. The Law of Leadership - It is better to be first than it is to be better. 2. The Law of th... 7   Sit Back and Relax... Watching another firm enter a market first and not entering yourself can be hard, but by doing this you can see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes a second mover strategy is preferable. For e... 3   Example of Poor Product positioning Is there an example of confused positioning? What have been the market consequences to that?... 2   1 comments Reverse and Stealth Positioning in Banking Institutions Competition drives the use of reverse positioning and stealth positioning techniques in business transactions in many service industries. For example banks use reverse positioning combined with stealt... 1

Best Practices The best, top-rated topics about Positioning. Here you will find the most valuable ideas and practical suggestions. Reposition or Relaunch? I would like to know if repositioning is a good strategy or should we change the brand and re-launch the product? As Al Ries and Jack Trout have mentioned the most wasteful expense that a company coul... 8   10 comments

Expert Tips Advanced insights about Positioning. Here you will find professional advices by experts. How to Develop the Positioning for a Bank? Strategic Marketing, Positioning According to L. Biff Motley in the article “The Power of Positioning” (ABA Bank Marketing, Jan/Feb 2003), the lesson for... The Risk of Positioning your Product as 'The Best' Marketing, Positioning, Branding An article in the Harvard Business Review elaborates on the effects of positioning your product (company, organization)... Self-gifting Buying Behavior Consumer Marketing, Self-Gifting, Consumption Behavior, Consumer Behavior Clarke and Mortimer (2013) assess the motivations of self-gifting behavior and its following post-purchase regret. Self-... How to Better Understand your Customer's Needs? Customer Targeting and Strategy In order to transform your customer’s experience and to better understand your customer’s needs, it is helpful to constr... The 22 Laws of Branding (Trout & Ries) Branding, Brand Recognition 1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all peo... Social Persuasion: Determining the Potential of Social Influencers Social Media Marketing, Social Influence, Opinion Leadership Which consumers are best able to influence others in social groups? What characteristics and what factors identify those... Childrens' Understanding of Advertizing: Three Stages of Consumer Socialization Advertizing to Children, Targeting Children, Consumer Socialization, Marketing to Children The way that people behave and how they make their decisions in the marketplace depends on the processes by which they h... Brand Engagement of Consumers in the Digital Age Branding, Brand Management, Marketing, Advertising Edelman argues that nowadays people are connecting with brands in a different way than before. This is cuased mainly bec... Customer Experience Management Framework Experiential Marketing The concept of Customer Experience Management (CEM), which was developed by Bernd Schmitt, describes the process of stra... Why Some Technology Revolutions Take Off and Others Don't Adoption of New Technologies Back in 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, in which he suggested that the entrenched interes...

Information Sources Various sources of information regarding Positioning. Here you will find powerpoints, videos, news, etc. to use in your own lectures and workshops. Brand Positioning Positioning Brand Positioning by A. Kwanta Panthongprasert, Department of Advertsising, 2010. A clear summary presentation about Br... Brand and Identity Management in Fashion Companies Brand Management, Identity, Positioning, Communication This paper by Stefania Saviolo aims at analysing what are the peculiar aspect of brand management for fashion ready to w... Product Positioning Positioning Strategy Presentation about Product Positioning that includes the following sections: 1. Definition of Product Positioning 2. E... Strategically Managing Perceptions for Improved Corporate Reputation Reputation Management Activities, Strategic Reputation Management, Reputation Perceptions Concise presentation that provides an interesting framework for reputation management. It particularly focuses on 4 key ... Customer Segmentation by Emotion: The EMO-index Consumption Behavior Emotions are an important part of customers' overall experience and final decision making; therefore they contribute to ... Consumer Buyer Behavior & Business Buyer Behavior Marketing, Strategy Decision Presentation about both consumer buying behavior business buying behavior. First consumer buying behavior is explained a... Speech of Trout on the Importance of Marketing Trout on the Value of Marketing, Background of Trout Jack Trout refers to Drucker’s advice: "Because the purpose of a business is to create a customer, the business enterpri...

Research Links Automatically jump to further useful sources regarding Positioning. News Videos Presentations Books Academic More

Compare with Positioning:  Marketing Mix  |  Extended Marketing Mix (7-Ps)  |  Product/Market Grid  |  Co-Creation  |  Porter Competitive Advantage  |  BCG Matrix  |  Product Life Cycle  |  McKinsey Matrix  |  Innovation Adoption Curve  |  Profit Pools  |  Four Trajectories of Industry Change  |  Disruptive Innovation  |  Framing

Return to Management Hub: Communication & Skills  |  Knowledge & Intangibles  |  Marketing & Sales

More Management Methods, Models and Theory