The aim of this article is to explore the effective brand positioning strategies adopted by companies in order to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. First, this article will explain the benefits of a good brand positioning. Following this, there will a discussion about how to create effective brand positioning strategies with various examples.
According to Kotler & Keller (2016), segmentation, targeting, and positioning are three fundamental components of a marking strategy (p. 275). The role of positioning is to increase target consumers’ awareness of the distinctive offerings and images of a company. A good brand positioning can clarify the essence of a brand, identify the objectives that consumers are able to achieve as well as illustrate the specific way that consumers achieve their goals.
Companies can benefit a lot from a good brand positioning, which implies the significance of brand positioning in marketing. First, brand positioning can help identify the performance advantages of a product or service and match them with target market in a more effective way, which makes the company more market-oriented than its competitors. Another advantage of brand positioning is to enhance the company’s ability to respond to market changes.
It is unquestionable that the marketplace is full of new opportunities and new developments. Brand positioning is actually an effective strategy to deal with market changes in order to meet the changing expectations of target consumers. A company that fails to quickly respond to changes in the target market will lose its competitiveness. The third benefit is that brand positioning can help a company attract the attention of target consumers and increase consumers’ loyalty to the brand.
Brand positioning emphasizes the advantages of a product or service that meets the expectations of consumers, which will undoubtedly catch the attention of consumers. Moreover, brand positioning reinforces the brand images of a company through proper advertising and build strong connection between brand images and enhanced consumer experiences, which attracts consumers to remain committed to the brand.
The benefits of brand positioning demonstrate the necessity for a company to make effective brand positioning strategies. The predominate goal of brand positioning is to build sustainable competitive advantages (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Therefore, it is important to choose a competitive frame of reference. The competitive frame of reference contains two major aspects: identifying the competitors of a brand and analyzing the strengths and weakness of these competitors. Competitors are defined as companies that can meet the same needs of consumers.
Kotler & Keller (2016) argue that a company should include a wide range of direct and indirect competitors in terms of category membership. This is because identifying a broad set of competitors can provide a more inspiring competitive frame for a company to position their products or services. Analyzing a company’s competitors is an imperative way to have a better understanding of key success factors as well as shortcomings of its counterparts. The company can take advantage of its competitors’ information to improve its own strength and overcome its weakness.
The second step after constructing a competitive frame of reference is to identify the points-of-difference and points- of-parity associations. Points-of-difference refers to the unique attributes or benefits of a brand, which cannot be found in other competitive brands (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Points-of-difference is essential to brand positioning as a brand with points-of-difference cannot be replaced by its counterparts due to the unique features of its products or services. It should be noted that it is difficult for a new brand to create points-of-difference when the market is relatively mature.
There are three key standards determining the brand association as point-of-difference, including desirability, deliverability and differentiability (Kotler & Keller, 2016). First, consumers are persuaded to believe that the brand will provide benefits they desire. Then, the company is capable of creating the brand association and supporting the brand association with strong product or service performance (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Finally, consumers can recognize the superior aspects of the brand association comparing to its competitors (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Apple is a brand featuring multiple points-of-difference, including innovative product design, ease-of-use, and cutting-edge technology. Apple succeeds in offering unique products desired by consumers, which contributes to the loyalty of consumers to the brand.
Points-of-parity refers to the attributes or benefits shared with other brands (Kotler & Keller, 2016). There are three forms of points-of-parity, including category points-of-parity, correlational points-of-parity and competitive points-of-parity. Category points-of-parity is legitimate offering within the category of a product or service, which means that consumers regards the offering of a brand as necessary but they may not choose the brand due to the insufficiency of the offering (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Correlational points-of-parity refers to the negative brand association originated from positive brand association (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
When a brand provides a unique benefit, it raises customers’ expectation at other aspects of the brand. Consumers will be disappointed if not all aspects of the brand meet their expectations. Competitive points-of-parity means the associations that is used to overcome the weaknesses of the brand regarding points-of-difference (Kotler & Keller, 2016). One example of competitive points-of-parity is in early 2008, H&M launched its T-mall store to compete with the T-mall stores of Zara and UNIQLO in Chinese ecommerce landscape. It is important for a company to choose specific points-of-difference and points-of-parity for their brand positioning strategies.
In conclusion, brand positioning is important for a company to gain competitive advantage in the market. Brand positioning can help a company identify the distinctive aspects of a product or service and attract the attention of target consumers. Meanwhile, brand positioning can make the company be more flexible and dynamic when coping with market changes. A company with a good brand positioning is able to choose a competitive frame of reference to identify their competitors as well as analyze the strengths and weakness of their competitors. Choosing points-of-difference and points-of-parity can help a company become more competitive in the marketplace.