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If you’re a marketer or work in the advertising field, you’ve most likely heard about the concept of ‘brand positioning’.
In this article, we explain brand positioning in simple terms and the best way to determine how to understand and define your brand position.
Brand positioning has been defined by Kotler as “The act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market”.
In other words, brand positioning describes how a brand is different from its competitors and where, or how, it sits in customers’ minds.
A brand positioning strategy involves creating brand associations in customers’ minds to make them perceive the brand in a specific way. For example, one car brand may be known for luxury and another brand may be known for affordability.
In a competitive market, you need to be known for something special and unique otherwise you blend in and don’t stand out. It is vital to differentiate your brand against the competition so that your business gets chosen first. Without knowing what your USPs (unique selling points) are, how will consumers know what to choose you for?
Large global corporations, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble have many products in the same category and without brand differentiation they wouldn’t be able to sell them. They differentiate their fast moving consumer goods by product features, ingredients, pricing and brand design.
The final step in the process is a sense-check to ensure that your unique brand qualities are definitely unique and not owned by a key competitor.
It’s very rare to have one USP or one key differentiator in today’s world. Except for innovators who introduce completely new products or services in a category, most brands need multiple strengths to hand their hat on.
In the majority of cases, it’s a combination of a brand’s several USPs that make a brand differentiated and stand out in market. It’s recommended to focus on 3 to 5 unique qualities.
There are three key criteria for judging whether a positioning is ‘right’ for a business or brand:
It must already exist within the company. It must reflect and reinforce current culture and behaviour for staff, and it must be seen to be something that brands ‘could’ say from the outside.
Too often brands attempt to position themselves in a way they believe will interest customers, but in a way that is so far removed from the core of the business, that it is simply not believable.
There is little point in saying the same thing as your competitors. It is important that a brand creates its own distinct position within the category.
It must be of genuine interest to consumers to drive brand preference and be aligned to their emotional needs.
If you’d like help with defining your brand position in market, reach out to us for a chat. Our brand team would love to help. We also invite you to check out some of our recent branding projects.
No more missed opportunities. No shoehorning, railroading or using a jack hammer to crack a walnut. No more wasted branding, web or marketing dollars.
David Metcalf
Director
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