Benefits of Brand Positioning

Positioning is what you stand for in the mind of the market. Brand positioning is a strategic approach to establishing a sustainable competitive advantage. Achieving competitive advantage strengthens and positions a business better within the business environment.

There are five generic competitive branding strategies useful in brand positioning. 

These generic competitive strategies are:

1. A low-cost leadership strategy entails the process of appealing to the broad spectrum of potential buyers by being able to offer an overall low cost product or service. Example: Walmart, Dell Computers

2. A broad differentiation strategy is one in which a business seeks to differentiate its products or services from their competitors in ways that attract the broadest spectrum of customers in an established industry. Example: Mercedes cars, Apple

3. A best cost provider strategy is one that offers customers more value for the buck, with a lot of emphasis on the low cost of the product or service in comparison to its high quality. Great example is Toyota with its Lexus luxury models.

4. A focused strategy on lower costs is a brand positioning strategy that concentrates on out competing rivals, by offering customized products or services at a lower cost to a smaller portion of the established buyers. Example: many small retailers offering their own label or discounted line of products.

5. A focused strategy based on differentiation is one in which the focus is on a narrow segment of buyers who are offered a product or service that has been customized to meet their exact tastes and demands and supersedes what competitors are offering. Example: any successful niche retailers (The Perfume Shop, etc.).

Benefits of Brand Positioning:

Better decision-making. Positioning is an essential framework for helping you decide what to do – and what not to do.

Efficiency & effectiveness. A proverb states, “He who chases two rabbits will catch neither.” Positioning focuses your limited resources on a clearly defined goal, enabling these investments to build upon each other instead of being deployed scattershot.

Control. Either position yourself, or your competitors will happily do it for you. Positioning gives you control over your own brand image, because it defines the space you can own like no one else.

Marketers can use many dimensions to carve out a brand’s position in the market place. A brand for each brand position strategy:

• Lifestyle

SWATCH has become successful lifestyle brands. It play an important role in our lives by allowing us to express our values and define ourselvesto the world. Lifestyle branding appeals to managers because it offers what appears to be a relatively easy way to sidestep competition and connect with customers on a more personal level lifestyle brands do not evade the competition; instead they end up competing for a share of a consumer’s identity. And as an increasing number of brands turn to lifestyle positioning, the competition among self-expressive brands intensifies. 

• Price leadership

Wal-Mart is a price leader. The brands that are suffering today are those that try to stake out

a position in the middle of the road. They face price competition from the price leader. This way the company translates its cost advantage into price advantage for its customers and thereby improves the market share.  This is how Wal-Mart captures the markets and eliminates the competitors and improves revenues and market share.  Wal-Mart Stores set the standard for retailers: They were the most efficient at getting low-priced goods into the hands of consumers that nobody could beat them on price.

• Attributes

Blackberry mobile phones they position their Brand on the basis of the attributes of their product. Their products have special features like Blackberry Messenger (BBM) which makes their product different from others. This strategy relies on providing a superior product to the customers to have a better positioning.

• Product class

Hindustan Unilever has positioned their various soaps by product class. Like they have dove and lux etc that is positioned by same class. Positioning by product class can increase a company’s profits by presenting more items from our product line to consumers who may be familiar with or loyal to our brand name. This is especially key when similar products we position in our product class are one-of-a-kind with no similar offerings by competitors.

• Competitors

Samsung which deals in mobiles phones position their product by keeping in mind its competetors like HTC, sony and lg etc. The Positioning by competitor strategy may be influenced by the market, the features of other products in the market, their pricing,

distribution as well as any other factor which is the strength of the competitor. If Samsung is fighting against a competitor on the same factors of positioning, it should better be prepared for a long and hard fight. However, if it want to get to the top, it need to attack the weaknesses first and thereby permanently take away some of the market share of the competitor.

• Occasion

COCK brand crackers have done its brand positioning on the basis of occasion. This kind of positioning stresses when or how your product is used by your target audience. Crackers are

mostly used on some special occasions like diwali, new year and marriage etc. So in the mind of consumer their products are positioned as occasion products.

• Users

VERTU a subsidiary of Nokia mobile phone has positioned their brand on the base of high class users. Their mobiles are very costly. Vertu creates limited edition luxurious cell &mobile phones using the finest materials available including gold, titanium etc

• Quality

BMW cars have built its brand image or position their product in mind of consumer through the quality of their product. Building a powerful perception of quality, will succeed in creating a powerful brand. The best way to increase perception of quality is to narrow the company’s focus. BMW have narrowed product’s focus, they explain, we become a specialist rather than a generalist, and a specialist is perceived to know more, or be of “higher quality” than a generalist.