Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Prof.Rajiv Gupta
“Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do the mind of the
prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.”
…Al Ries and Jack Trout
Authors, Positioning Gurus & Consultants
PREFERENCE SEGMENTS
Market Segments also emerge based on the product attributes preferred by
potential buyers. These are:
- Homogenous Preferences
- Diffused Preferences
- Clustered Preferences
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DIFFERENTIATION Companies are constantly trying to differentiate their
market offering from competitors’. They dream up new services and
guarantees, special rewards for loyal users, new conveniences and enjoyments.
Differentiation is the act of designing a set of meaningful differences to
distinguish the company’s offerings from competitors’ offerings.
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Product Positioning Vs Differentiation: In product Differentiation the attempt
is to endow the product with certain distinctive attributes, which in turn offer
some value to consumers. In product positioning, the attempt is to lodge or
place the differentiated product in the minds of the target consumers .
Positioning of Different
High
Bar Soaps
moisturizing
• Tone • Zest
7
4 • Lever 2000
• Dove
2
5
• Safeguard
• Lux 8
Nondeodorant 3 Deodorant
1
• Lava • Dial
“Product Space”
Representing Consumers’ Perception for • Lifebuoy
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Different Brands of Bar Soap
Low
moisturizing
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How many Differences should we Promote? Each company must decide on
how many differences (eg., benefit, features) to promote to its target customers.
Many marketers advocate promoting only one central benefit – a company
should develop a unique selling proposition(USP) for each brand and stick to it.
Each brand should select an attribute and tout itself as “number one” on that
attribute. Number-one positioning includes:- Best quality, Best service, Lowest
price, Best value, Safest, Fastest, Most customized, Most convenient, Most
advanced technology etc. However, not everyone agrees that single-benefit
positioning is always best. So then, can we promote more than one benefit?
Double-benefit positioning may be necessary if two or more firms claim to be
best on the same attribute. There are even cases of successful triple-benefit
positioning.
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3) Confused Positioning: confused image of the brand resulting from the
company making too many claims or changing the brand’s positioning too
frequently.
4) Doubtful Positioning: buyers may find it hard to believe claims in view of the
product’s features, price or manufacture.
Positioning Strategies
Attribute positioning: Company positions itself on attribute, such as size or
number of years in existence.
Benefit positioning: - The product is positioned as a leader in a certain benefit.
Use or application positioning: - Positioning the product as best for some use or
application.
User positioning: - Positioning the product as best for some user group.
Competitor positioning: - The product claims to be better than the competitor.
Product category positioning: - The product is positioned as the leader in a
certain product category.
Quality or price positioning: - The product is positioned as offering the best
value.
The end result of positioning is the successful creation of a market-focused value
proposition, a cogent reason why the target market should buy the product.
Defining Associations
Points-of-difference Points-of-parity (POPs)
(PODs) Associations that are not
Attributes or benefits necessarily unique to the
consumers strongly brand but may be
associate with a brand, shared with other
positively evaluate, and brands
believe they could not
find to the same extent
with a competitive brand