Brand positioning refers to target consumers reason to buy your brand in preference to others.

to buy; and it focusses at all points of contact with the consumer. Brand positioning must make sure that: Is it unique/distinctive vs. competitors ? Is it significant and encouraging to the niche market ? Is it appropriate to all major geographic markets and businesses ? Is the proposition validated with unique, appropriate and original products ? Is it sustainable - can it be delivered constantly across all points of contact with the consumer ? Is it helpful for organization to achieve its financial goals ? Is it able to support and boost up the organization ? In order to create a distinctive place in the market, a niche market has to be carefully chosen and a differential advantage must be created in their mind. Brand positioning is a medium through which an organization can portray its customers what it wants to achieve for them and what it wants to mean to them. Brand positioning forms customers views and opinions. Brand Positioning can be defined as an activity of creating a brand offer in such a manner that it occupies a distinctive place and value in the target customers mind. For instanceKotak Mahindra positions itself in the customers mind as one entity- Kotak - which can provide customized and one-stop solution for all their financial services needs. It has an unaided top of mind recall. It intends to stay with the proposition of Think Investments, Think Kotak. The positioning you choose for your brand will be influenced by the competitive stance you want to adopt. Brand Positioning involves identifying and determining points of similarity and difference to ascertain the right brand identity and to create a proper brand image. Brand Positioning is the key of marketing strategy. A strong brand positioning directs marketing strategy by explaining the brand details, the uniqueness of brand and its similarity with the

ensures that all brand activity has a common aim; is guided, directed and delivered by the brands benefits/re

competitive brands, as well as the reasons for buying and using that specific brand. Positioning is the base for developing and increasing the required knowledge and perceptions of the customers. It is the single feature that sets your service apart from your competitors. For instance- Kingfisher stands for youth and excitement. It represents brand in full flight. There are various positioning errors, such as Under positioning- This is a scenario in which the customers have a blurred and unclear idea of the brand. Over positioning- This is a scenario in which the customers have too limited a awareness of the brand. Confused positioning- This is a scenario in which the customers have a confused opinion of the brand. Double Positioning- This is a scenario in which customers do not accept the claims of a brand.

Effective Brand Positiong Positioning and Spending Effectiveness: The Path to Brand In today's uncertain economic environment, meeting the demands of consumers, customers and Wall Street analysts is no easy task. The senior executives at the clients we serve must contend with the slow economy, reduced consumer spending power, and significant cost increases across the P&L (higher ingredient and packaging costs, higher transportation costs and higher plant operating costs to name a few!). To grow profit in this environment, CPG companies face a stark choice: volume driven earnings growth or cost cutting. Too often CPG companies choose the latter. In uncertain times, CPG companies tend to view brand building activity and spending as an expense vs. an investment, and in so doing, they justify cutting these "expenses" as a sure fire way to hit the quarterly numbers. Viewed in this context, profitable growth via brand loyalty building is a high risk endeavor with an uncertain payback, beyond the direct control of operating managers. There is a better way. Best in class CPG companies view brand loyalty building activities as a high odds means to consistent, volume-driven earnings growth in good economic times and bad. They focus relentlessly on the growth levers they have direct control over, including two critical levers that build brand loyalty: Positioning effectiveness Advertising / Consumer / Trade Promotion Effectiveness Improve Your Brand's Positioning Effectiveness Great companies begin with the fundamentals, and there is nothing more fundamental for purveyors of branded products than positioning. Perhaps only the Bible has been written about more often than the art of positioning. So, rather than a treatise on the topic overall, let's focus on what is different about positioning in top companies vs. others. For the top companies, positioning is a function first and foremost of the Competitive Frame in which their brands compete. Broadly defined, the Competitive Frame is that array of products, often from diverse categories, that consumers use as direct substitutes in a given situation. It is critical, first to define the Competitive Frame much more broadly than traditional category definitions, and secondly to be explicit about which of these competitors the brand

will source volume from. Only in this fashion can you be assured that your brand will focus on delivering the benefits that really matter. In the example below, we highlight a choice that a fictional food company might face in determining a winning positioning for a cheese flavored cracker brand:

Positioning Alternative #1

Positioning Alternative #2 All FLAVORED SALTY

SNACKS (including barbecue flavored potato chips, salt and vinegar potato chips, cheese puffs, flavored tortilla chips, Competitive Frame Market Size Other cheese CRACKERS 100 etc) 250

Preferred Benefit

vs.

other

cheese Preferred vs. other FLAVORED SALTY SNACKS

CRACKERS

Eaters Target CRACKERS

of

cheese Eaters of FLAVORED SALTY SNACKS (General Population) Relative to FLAVORED

(Kids 6-12)

Pricing Strategy Assortment, Placement Strategy Shelf Promotion

Relative to CRACKERS

SALTY SNACKS

Relative Relative to CRACKERS

to

FLAVORED

SALTY SNACKS

What this fictional example illustrates is the criticality of the choice of the competitive frame for this product. This choice determines the size of the market the brand competes in,

the types of benefits that will be needed to win in this market, the target, the pricing and the customer strategy. Of course, knowing where your brand competes from a consumer perspective is no easy task. A precise understanding of consumer usage beyond traditionally defined categories is critical. If the organization above only looked at its competition as brands on the monthly market share report that is, other cheese cracker brands -- it would have missed an enormous opportunity. Best-in-class companies get the knowledge they need via a rigorously defined Market Map that expertly combines usage and purchase information with needs and attitudes to identify the broadest competitive frame possible. Once created, the Market Map becomes the foundation for all the other loyalty-building strategies, including improving marketing and sales spending effectiveness. Improve Advertising, Consumer and Trade Promotion Effectiveness Once an effective, differentiating positioning is created, top companies turn their attention to improving spending effectiveness. Some companies use blunt instruments such as share of voice to determine spending level. The folly of this approach is apparent given our discussion of the cheese cracker brand above. If the fictional food company in our example had used the "cheese cracker market" as the relevant frame of reference, it would have found that little to no spending is required to win. However, by knowing the brand is part of much larger competitive set that includes big salty snack brands, the company not only understands the true size of the potential opportunity, it also knows the level of spending necessary to compete. But top companies also know the optimal spending of each element of the marketing mix(Advertising, Consumer Promotion and Trade Promotion). That's because the analytical framework that was used to create the Market Map can be combined with a brand's P&L to determine the total spending level and mix that maximizes brand profitability. For example, the cheese cracker brand discussed above has an enormous Competitive Frame, which is comprised of millions of usage occasions that include all flavored salty snack occasions, not just cheese cracker occasions. This is an enormous pool of potential occasions from which to source volume. By understanding the precise flow of volume that has occurred historically between cheese snacks and flavored salty snacks due to different types of

spending (Advertising, Consumer and Trade), our fictional food company is able to accurately predict the mix of spending that will grow volume from available usage occasions until marginal profit becomes negative. This level of precision provides operating managers with a high degree of confidence in and control over their decisions about both spending level and mix. No longer are these critical decisions based on simplistic benchmark ratios like share of voice, or historical percent of gross revenue. Instead, managers can make decisions based on the ability of each type of marketing expenditure to maximize profit growth and build brand loyalty. This is particularly helpful when evaluating the tradeoff between advertising and trade spending. With the advent of retail scanner data 25 years ago, the impact of trade promotion on short-term sales became eminently measurable, resulting in a mass migration from equity building activities to Trade Promotion tactics. The result is that most companies we work with are over-spent on trade promotion, and substantially under spent on advertising. But because they do not have a fact-based and uniform way to understand the impact of Trade vs. Advertising spending, they often feel powerless to make significant changes. The Market Map analytical framework can help here as well. Best-in-Class companies are able to precisely identify the mix of Promotional and Advertising spending that maximizes total marginal profitability for their Brands. If under spent on advertising, they can choose to increase equity and loyalty building spending with incremental funds, given the confidence they have in the volume this spending will deliver. Or as is more often the case in our experience, they can choose to fund equity building activities by shifting spending away from Trade. Since they know the point at which trade spending becomes unprofitable, they know precisely how much Trade money they have available to be repurposed toward advertising. And they can begin confidently repurposing that Trade spending without risking significant losses in volume. That is because the Market Map is created via analysis of millions of individual occasions. It can be used to pinpoint exactly the types of Trade Promotion activities that create brand switching, vs. those that simply reward loyal users. With this knowledge, managers can maximize the trade tactics that create switching and minimize all others, enabling much greater Trade Promotion effectiveness with fewer

dollars in spending. Thus, the inherent risks of reducing Trade Promotion spending are confidently mitigated and managed. For top companies, moving a brand to optimal Advertising spending can be done with great speed and a high degree of confidence. This level of operating control is contingent upon the knowledge provided by the Market Map. Without it, the fictional food company in our example could not have known that volume flows between crackers and salty snacks; nor would it have had a way to calculate how much of that volume flow is profitably driven by advertising vs. consumer vs. trade spending. Now this loyalty-building approach does not come easily. It requires a new expectation for growth from mature businesses and demands a new level of accountability from Marketing and Sales management. It requires a few new tools including the Market Map. Perhaps most significantly, it requires a commitment to the arduous work of long-term brand loyalty building, quarter after quarter, year after year. In short, brand loyalty building is a strategic and organizational paradigm shift for many companies. Not surprisingly, success is highly correlated with direct sponsorship from top operating managers, quite often including the CEO, CMO and other senior executives. But for those companies who have ventured down the loyalty-building path, the rewards have been significant: more consistent, volume-driven earnings growth; sustainable competitive advantage in any economic environment; a greater level of management confidence; and, not least importantly, a higher degree of employee satisfaction, as line managers take firm control of their own destiny. Brand Positioning Strategies October 19th, 2005 Tags: 2 Comments 14,834 views

Your brand positioning is the space that your services and solutions occupy in the minds of your target audience. The right positioning incorporates strong values and differentiators that are important to your customers. Brand positioningis important in deciding where you

want to position your brand within its category and relative to the competition. Brand Positioning permeates virtually everything we do. It is the foundation to all communications and brand strategy. It is the disciplined thinking that guides the basis for building relationships between brands and customers. Once you determine the way in which you can reach your market, the next thing to look at is how you are going to lure your customer to try your brand. Here is a list of nine positioning types you can think of before deciding on which one you will attach to your brand:

1. QUALITY POSITIONING Perception of quality is probably one of the most important elements for a brand to have and can be combined with any of the other prompts below. Quality, or the perception of quality, lies in the mind of the buyer. Build a powerful perception of quality, and you will succeed in creating a powerful brand. Al Reis and Laura Reis, authors of The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding say the best way to increase perception of quality is to narrow the companys focus. When you narrow a products focus, they explain, you become a specialist rather than a generalist, and a specialist is perceived to know more, or be of higher quality than a generalist. Another way to build the perception of high quality is to simply attach a higher price tag to your brand. Most people think that they know a high quality product from another, but in reality, things are not always as they seem. Believe it or not, high price is a benefit to some customers. It allows the affluent consumer to obtain psychological satisfaction from the public purchase and consumption of a high end product. Of course, the product or service does need to have some perk or difference to justify the higher price.

2. VALUE POSITIONING Although at one time, items that were considered to be a good value meant that they were inexpensive, that stigma has fallen by the wayside. Today, brands that are considered a value are rising in popularity amongst consumers. Southwest Airlines is probably the best example of how a company has been able to offer discount prices and still keep a strong brand identity. In fact, most of the other major airlines have followed Southwests lead by rolling out value-priced flights under new, co-branded names.

3. FEATURE-DRIVEN POSITIONING More marketers rely on product/service features to differentiate their brands than any other method. The advantage is that the message is clear, and the positioning will be credible if you stick to the facts about the product. Unfortunately, feature-orientated stances are often rendered useless if the competition comes out with a faster or more advanced model.

4. RELATIONAL POSITIONING One of the most effective ways to create interest in a brand is to send out a positioning prompt that resonates well with potential buyers. For instance, Sketchers equates sneakers with cool and that characteristic passes to all who wear them. Apple computer, which was down on its luck in the overall computer marketplace, started asking computer users to liberate themselves from the PC camp and Think Different. These brands have achieved positioning based on who buys what they sell, not solely by what they sell.

5. ASPIRATION POSITIONING These are positioning prompts that offer prospects a place they might like to go, or a person they might like to be, or a state of mind they might like to achieve.

6. PROBLEM/SOLUTION POSITIONING As the name implies, problem/solution prompts show the consumer how a sticky situation can be relieved quickly and easily with the brand or service. What problem/solution campaigns lack in imagination, they usually make up for in directness and credibility. For example, frozen meals cut meal preparation time to minutes. Detergents and cleansers also make good use of these prompts.

7. RIVALRY-BASED POSITIONING By definition, positioning deals with how one brand is thought of compared to its obvious competitors. Therefore, the idea of a rivalry-based position might seem redundant but many campaigns take this approach. Laundry detergents, for one, are constantly going head-tohead to prove which one has the most power to lift stains.

8. WARM AND FUZZY POSITIONING Underneath our capitalist driven needs to consume, we are still docile and emotional animals. As such, many marketers play on our feelings. In the book,Building Brand Identity: A Strategy for Success in a Hostile Marketplace , author Lynn Upshaw writes, How people feel about a brand is oftentimes need- or desire based, which means that emotional or psychological approaches can oftentimes be very effective as positioning prompts.

9. BENEFIT-DRIVEN POSITIONING Other brands base their entire positioning on the fact that they give back to the consumer. Discover credit card, for instance tells customers that It Pays to Discover. Use the card and get money back. Discover was among the first major credit cards companies to provide its users with a financial incentive for using their card.