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:
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Product features
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Benefits, needs, or solutions
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Use categories
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Usage occasions
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Placing and comparing it relative to another product
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Dissociation of the product class
Three bases of positioning can be distinguished
- Functional (solve problems, provide benefits to customers)
- Symbolic (self-image enhancement, ego identification, belongingness
and social meaningfulness, affective fulfillment)
- Experiential (provide sensory stimulation; provide cognitive
stimulation)
Steps in Product Positioning. Process
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Identify competing products
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Identify the attributes, also called dimensions, that define
the product 'space'
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Collect information from a sample of customers about their
perceptions of each product on the relevant attributes
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Determine the share of mind of each product
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Determine the current location of each product in the product
space
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Determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes.
These are called: an ideal vector.
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Examine the fit between: the positions of competing products,
the position of your product and the position of the ideal vector
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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 -
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 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 stealth positioning for promotional checks to con...
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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 could do is to try to change the mind of the prosp...
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Positioning Special Interest Group
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Positioning Education & Events
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 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. Comp...
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How to Develop the Positioning for a Bank?
According to L. Biff Motley in the article “The Power of Positioning” (ABA Bank Marketing, Jan/Feb 2003), the lesson for community banks from Reis’...
Usage (application): Strategic Marketing, Positioning
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The Risk of Positioning your Product as 'The Best'
An article in the Harvard Business Review elaborates on the effects of positioning your product (company, organization) as 'the best’. According to t...
Usage (application): Marketing, Positioning, Branding
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Self-gifting Buying Behavior
Clarke and Mortimer (2013) assess the motivations of self-gifting behavior and its following post-purchase regret. Self-gifting refers to buying produ...
Usage (application): Consumer Marketing, Self-Gifting, Consumption Behavior, Consumer Behavior
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How to Better Understand your Customer's Needs?
In order to transform your customer’s experience and to better understand your customer’s needs, it is helpful to construct a hypothetical cons...
Usage (application): Customer Targeting and Strategy
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The 22 Laws of Branding (Trout & Ries)
1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all people undermines the power of th...
Usage (application): Branding, Brand Recognition
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Social Persuasion: Determining the Potential of Social Influencers
Which consumers are best able to influence others in social groups? What characteristics and what factors identify those consumers with the greates...
Usage (application): Social Media Marketing, Social Influence, Opinion Leadership
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Childrens' Understanding of Advertizing: Three Stages of Consumer Socialization
The way that people behave and how they make their decisions in the marketplace depends on the processes by which they have obtained skills, knowledge...
Usage (application): Advertizing to Children, Targeting Children, Consumer Socialization, Marketing to Children
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Brand Engagement of Consumers in the Digital Age
Edelman argues that nowadays people are connecting with brands in a different way than before. This is cuased mainly because of an increased number of...
Usage (application): Branding, Brand Management, Marketing, Advertising
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Customer Experience Management Framework
The concept of Customer Experience Management (CEM), which was developed by Bernd Schmitt, describes the process of strategically managing a cu...
Usage (application): Experiential Marketing
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Why Some Technology Revolutions Take Off and Others Don't
Back in 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, in which he suggested that the entrenched interests in an old paradigm will res...
Usage (application): Adoption of New Technologies
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Brand Positioning
Brand Positioning by A. Kwanta Panthongprasert, Department of Advertsising, 2010.
A clear summary presentation about Brand Positioning.
Fir...
Usage (application): Positioning
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Brand and Identity Management in Fashion Companies
This paper by Stefania Saviolo aims at analysing what are the peculiar aspect of brand management for fashion ready to wear firms. We define the brand...
Usage (application): Brand Management, Identity, Positioning, Communication
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Product Positioning
Presentation about Product Positioning that includes the following sections:
1. Definition of Product Positioning
2. Elements of Product Pos...
Usage (application): Positioning Strategy
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Strategically Managing Perceptions for Improved Corporate Reputation
Concise presentation that provides an interesting framework for reputation management. It particularly focuses on 4 key activities that together form ...
Usage (application): Reputation Management Activities, Strategic Reputation Management, Reputation Perceptions
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Customer Segmentation by Emotion: The EMO-index
Emotions are an important part of customers' overall experience and final decision making; therefore they contribute to value creation. Although the i...
Usage (application): Consumption Behavior
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Consumer Buyer Behavior & Business Buyer Behavior
Presentation about both consumer buying behavior business buying behavior. First consumer buying behavior is explained and outlined. After that the bu...
Usage (application): Marketing, Strategy Decision
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Speech of Trout on the Importance of Marketing
Jack Trout refers to Drucker’s advice: "Because the purpose of a business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two, and only these two...
Usage (application): Trout on the Value of Marketing, Background of Trout
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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
More Management Methods, Models and Theory
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Special Interest Group Leader
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