Positioning Strategies for Brands

                                Positioning is the pursuit of differential advantage.

Brands can create franchises of loyal customers only when they are seen to be different in some way which is persuasive for the target segment. Recall that famous article by Prof. Levitt, “Marketing success through differentiation- of anything”. There is no such thing as a commodity, he argues. All goods and services are differentiable.

We know that as brands tend to become physically similar – as the better mousetrap is followed by a dozen “me too” mousetrap more or less equal in performance – the brand manager falls back more and more on non-functional factors to distinguish his brand. Persuasive differentiation becomes an increasingly difficult task.

One of the major contributions of positioning theories to marketing strategy has been in the ‘perceived space’ of the prospect and to uncover the many opportunities for such perceived differentiation based upon the capabilities of the product and its antecedents.

Positioning puts in the hands of the brand manager an entire array of differentiating strategies. He must judge which of these strategies can help him locate a niche in the market where his brand may be perceived by his target segment as unique and where it will hold a competitive advantage.

These strategies revolve around different aspects of the brand which can be expressed ss four questions posed on its behalf.

Who am I?

1. What am I?
2. For whom am I?
3. Why Me?

The answer to these would determine the brand’s position in the prospect’s mind.