Brand Positioning

Brand Positioning. The best brands have a thorough understanding of the demographics of their target market, what their interests are, and how they communicate. Unless it’s a mega chain like Wal-Mart, most businesses have a specific target audience they’re pursuing. Understanding the target market is critical because it provides direction for the tone and reach of a marketing campaign, along with the overall identity of a brand, while helping to create an organic, human connection between a business and its audience.

Trying to appeal to everyone (ie, ignoring the concept of a target market) can be counterproductive, causing a company’s brand to become diluted. Finding the right branding approach requires first understanding the target market.

Brand positioning refers to “target consumer’s” reason to buy your brand in preference to others. It is ensures that all brand activity has a common aim; is guided, directed and delivered by the brand’s benefits/reasons 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 it’s customers what it wants to achieve for them and what it wants to mean to them. Brand positioning forms customer’s 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 customer’s mind. For instance-Kotak Mahindra positions itself in the customer’s 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 it’s similarity with the 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 customer’s 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.

Building on the work or thinking you’ve done up to this point try to finish this sentence:

Our Brand is the only ____________ that ____________.

In the first blank put your category (furniture design, computer repair service, etc). In the second, describe what makes you different (that sells sustainably manufactured furniture, that makes house calls, etc.) If you can’t keep it that short and use the word “only”, then you need to work on “2. Business Strategy: the landscape” in your brand brief. One way to move forward in this case is to make a list of all the competitors who could make the same claim, and then start to shift your strategy away from theirs. If you can fill in that sentence pretty well here’s a more detailed exercise to help you pinpoint “your onliness”. It borrows from the journalistic model of storytelling: WHAT, HOW, WHO, WHERE, WHEN, WHY?