Brand Positioning: Description & Examples

Products and services are met with customers following the same methods. However, there are products and services of more than one brand that satisfy the same needs.  Each company produces similar items seeking to meet the same needs of customers.

This situation has led brands to seek and discover differentiation. Therefore, the companies have created a technique that is called brand positioning. The brand placement in the consumer’s mind in a way that evokes a concept or metaphor is called brand positioning. The concept of brand positioning refers to the category in which the brand will operate and how the target audience should perceive it. A company aims to place its brand in the target audience’s minds and be easily recognized. For example, people know Volvo, thanks to its safe seats. Remember, every brand is to leave strong impressions on people through proper positioning so that the brand and the company can be intertwined.

The Importance Of Brand Positioning

In this section of the article, As Screpy experts, we would like to introduce the importance of brand positioning.

One of the most important assets of a brand is the moral value it creates. Consumers believe that the brands they feel close to producing the best quality and usefulness for themselves. This perception held by customers raises loyalty and enables them to become an advocate of the brand. This value created for corporate brands brings an extremely important benefit since praising or promoting itself is not as effective as a consumer’s praising the brand.

Today, the advertising works of the phenomena with the brands on various social media platforms exemplify this situation. Even the advertising works prepared by a brand with large budgets are not as effective as reliable people approving that brand. Remember the last time Ronaldo moved a Coca-Cola bottle away from the desk during an interview. The mini-action taken by Ronaldo cost billions of dollars for the Coca-Cola company.

Such developments, which are important in terms of brand positioning, have changed the direction of the marketing world in recent years and completely renewed traditional advertising or marketing activities.

Developing Brand Positioning

The place where the brand will position itself should be permanent and specific while the customers perceive it. These are four pillars to develop brand positioning: target market, differentiation, supporting points, and competitiveness.

Target Market

 It is the audience in which you want to position your brand and urge it to get known. It isn’t easy to achieve success without knowing your market and structuring a solid framework. You should well-define the exact audience and so market.

Your brand may appeal to multiple markets. If that is the case, you should separate your brand positioning for each market. However, we should note that the different positioning should be in harmony with your brand image and not create confusion.

Differentiation

The value proposition your brand will bring to the market must be different from that of competitors. Why should customers choose your products over others? A strong differentiation will put you in a unique position in the market. Therefore, you should pay special attention to this point.

Supporting Points

Why should people believe your products are the best? Which benefits or features can be presented or delivered to people in order to support your claim in your product? In short, why should people believe you? To make a difference in the competition, you must identify the three or four strongest points that will strengthen your claim and want to stand out.

Competitiveness

Let’s say you are an amusement park operator. Are your competitors only other amusement parks? This is hardly possible to say. Your competitors have a free hand while making their names nearby shopping malls, bowling alleys, movie theaters, museums, exhibitions, concert venues, basketball and football arenas, and other amusement parks. Therefore, it would help if you structured your brand positioning within the context of your market.

How To Do Brand Positioning

There are three main points in the brand positioning process, which are brand, competitors, and consumers. There is no specific hierarchical order here. Every single premise here is equally important.

You should start with determining a strategy. Then, you should make an analysis and work towards your goal. It is not possible to analyze without a strategy and to achieve success without analysis.

In the meantime, you have to analyze yourself before analyzing your target consumers, competitors, and stakeholders. As Screpy experts, we recommend you apply comprehensive and detailed analyses with strategic planning models such as SWOT instead of ordinary due diligence to identify strengths and weaknesses. The main goal of the analysis is to preserve strengths and get rid of weaknesses.

Brand Positioning Process

Brand positioning requires a process by following specific steps. Now, we will go through each step based on our Screpy expertise.

• First of all, the brand should know itself, which means a company should be aware of its weaknesses and strengths as a monk knows about himself.  It should be able to analyze where the company is now.
• Second of all, opponents in the same market must be identified. It should be analyzed in which category they operate, their market segment, brand identity, target audience, where and how they use their communication activities, and their strengths and weaknesses.
• Thirdly, we should remind you that there is always a space that the opponents cannot notice. That empty space must be discovered before your opponent does so that a new category can be created appealing to new audiences.
• The brand’s target audience should be determined together while creating the new category,
• It is always wise to take into account the expectations and needs of the target audience.
• Then, your brand identity should be created in a way that will integrate the
• brand with its target audience.
• The most important element in the brand positioning process is the brand identity.
• Communication activities should be carried out with the right strategy and in the right place to ensure that your brand identity establishes an emotional bond with the target audience.

Brand Positioning Strategies

One of the most important stages of brand positioning is determining the main purposes for positioning the brand. In other words, determining the aspects in which the brand will differ from the competitors, identifying the similarities and superiorities will create the infrastructure of your positioning process.

While positioning, it is possible to look at seven different aspects from product features to competition, from consumer to category. We will examine each aspect depending on our Screpy expertise.

Brand Positioning by Product Features

It mainly focuses on the product’s cons or the consumer benefit. The product you offer may involve various features such as durability, economy, security. For example, some vehicle brands concentrate on fuel economy, while others focus on strength, stylish appearance, and durability.

Sometimes a product can contain two positionings, where can be observed in the toothpaste industry. Let’s suppose you have a toothpaste brand positioning with refreshment and caries preventer. However, if you present yourself in a way your brand aim cannot reach the audience, you can only take your place as “an ordinary toothpaste brand” in people’s minds.

Brand Positioning by Product Class

For some products, brand positioning plays a more important role in maintaining your market presence. For example, the positioning of a tomato paste brand should not be independent of other ketchup and tomato sauces.

Brand Positioning by Use

As an example of use, the Lipton brand has positioned itself for years as a winter product and to be drunk to warm up. On top of that, it has made advertisements supporting it in order to increase drinking during the winter period.

However, after adding cold tea to its product class, it launched and positioned cold tea as a summer product. Thus, it expanded its market share. Explaining the new applying methods of the product to the market both increase your market share and enables you to reach new audiences.

See More: How to do competitive analysis?

Brand Positioning Based on Price – Quality

You can create the perception of quality in people’s eyes by manipulating your product price. For example, suppose there is a t-shirt in a clothing store that starts at $150 and goes up to $2000. According to people, the 2000 dollar t-shirt comes with better quality. As illogical as it may seem, this method is skillfully used by many companies in all kinds of markets.

Brand Positioning Considering Competitors

In this type of positioning, rival companies with similar products examine each other. Thus, when putting a product on the market, positive and negative aspects are referenced from each other. In some products, specific competitors may be dominant in the market, while others may fall into the background. Sometimes competitors may follow a positioning strategy for the same product. However, sometimes a competitor can maintain its presence in the market with a better positioning by improving the other competitor’s positioning.

For example, like any other mechanical company that manufactures trucks, Volvo manufactured trucks durable for long-hauls. But over time, what sets Volvo apart from other companies is its legendary braking system.

Brand Positioning by Location and Culture

Today, brands and cultures can come together through advertisements to reach people with the culture in a specific location. Therefore, many of the advertisements use cultural symbols established in the society they are addressing for product positioning. But there is a critical point we should mention here as Screpy experts. When positioning your brand, you need to choose a cultural aspect that has a place in people’s minds. You should also make sure that your competitors have not used this symbol before.

Brand Positioning by User

Attaching a product to the buyer and marketing them as an integral part is also a positioning strategy. As an example, every clothing company announces some of their clothes to the market with the promotion of “special design” every period. Thus, it is aimed to create a fashion image in the eyes of people.

 A model, football player, social media influencer becomes the face of the product, and the “celebrity” becomes an integral part of the product. The best example of this has been the relationship between Nike and Ronaldo over the years. Nike has been able to positively affect its users and brand image for years by making Ronaldo the advertising face.

Repositioning

Every company may require to reposition its brand or products due to different reasons. For example, the brand’s loyal consumer base may age and disappear over time. Periodic modernization occurs every decade, and so differentiations take their place in the market.

Repositioning is not only a beneficial process but also involves a risky and cumbersome path. However, every brand should eliminate the deficiencies by focusing on the right points without losing the current consumer base. While doing this, you should pay full attention not to make your audience angry and disappointed. You should maintain your reputation while emphasizing what is coming loyal to the product’s legacy and modern at the same time.

Now, As Screpy experts, we will answer the frequently asked questions about brand positioning.

FAQ

Conclusion

Brand positioning is an energy-and-time-demanding thing, but it is worth investing in due to the benefits it brings. Strong and differentiated brands will leave the table with positive feedbacks such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, high sales. It enables you to stand out in the competitive and run more effective operations. With a strong and proper positioning, you will create strong bonds between your company goals and your customers, and you will eventually enable your customers to become brand advocates who will voluntarily engage in brand communication for you.

Brand positioning should form the basis of your company and marketing strategy.