https://hbr.org/product/marketing-reading-brand-positioning/8197HB-HTM-ENG

1. POSITIONING: 

the art of staking out a particular piece of mental real estate for a brand in the consumer's mind by crafting and communicating a differentiated positioning statement 

each brand tries to stake a particular claim of superiority

end result: how consumers catalog, classify and remember a brand

companies should not define themselves by the products they sell, but rather reorient themselves to their customers' perspective by defining themselves through the value they produce in consumers

nothing's a commodity theory: deep understanding of customers is the key to creating a value proposition that allows consumers to perceive a product as a differentiated solution that meets their specific needs, rather than a commodity

2. positioning statement

• for whom, for when, for where

• what value

-economic value

-functional value

-experiential value

-social value

• why and how (reasons to believe)

• relative to whom

general form:

For [target market], Brand X is the only brand among all [competitive set] that [unique value claim] because [reasons to believe]

3. selling  proposition

USP: a unique selling proposition is a type of value claim that offers a prospective customer a specific, unique, and superior reason to purchase

USP must hinge on a specific benefit that competitors could not copy and that was resonant and relevant enough to persuade consumers to buy

when making purchasing decisions, consumers often rely on their irrational emotions, memories,intuitions, dreams and aspirations

4. the three Cs model

• consumer analysis: relevant, resonant, realistic

• competitive analysis: distinctive, defensible, durable

• company analysis: feasible favorable, faithful

relevant: 

definition: addressing their fundamental needs or the jobs that they need the product or service to accomplish or  specify a target market in the positioning statement  and aligning the value claim with specific needs of that target market

resonance

definition: constitute symbols of the values of a particular subculture at a particular hitorical moment

- feature or attribute-based claim

- benefit-based claim

- value-based claim

Brands that acknowledge major cultural contradictions can help consumers bridge the gap between their actual state of being (i.e., “what is”) and their desired state (i.e., “what could be”). These brands achieve their resonance by addressing the identity desires and anxieties that dominant ideologies leave in their wake.

REALISTIC

DISTINCTIVE

Products and services generally contain 3 types of attributes that can be transformed into value claims and leveraged for brand positioning: 

1)unique attributes: some that only one competitor has

2)shared attributes: some things that competitors have in common

3)irrelevant attributes: distinguishing characteristics of the product that provide consumers with no actual economic, functional, experiential, or social value

Points of parity: those product or brand attributes, benefits, or values that are shared across competitors.    These often represent “musthaves”— features that consumers demand before they are willing to consider a product or service for purchase

Points of difference: those product or brand attributes, benefits, or values that are unique to a particular competitor.

Vertical positioning : highlights attributes that are shared among brands, but stresses a particular brand’s superior performance on those attributes, using words such as smaller, faster, and cheaper to delineate a natural pecking order

Horizontal positioning: involves adding new attributes, benefits, or values to attract customers

Perceptual mapping: Consumers are asked to compare and contrast sets of brands across a set of attributes; then their answers are used to map the spatial differences among brands

Brand association maps: a type of perceptual map, are generated from the data, where the proximity of words to each other indicates their statistical correlation.

Analyzing a perceptual map

Defensible

Many companies find that focusing value claims at the features and attributes level leaves them vulnerable to quick competitive imitation, leaving the brand with an undifferentiated positioning.

Durable

Durable brand positions, whose appeal lasts over prolonged periods of time, provide continuity to a brand

Feasible

Favorable

Faithful

5. REPOSITIONING

• For whom, for when, for where? 

Changing the target market, expanding the usage situation, or finding new places where consumers can purchase or consume the product can often be a way to increase sales.

• What value? 

Most repositioning efforts involve adding new value claims to resonate with changing consumer needs. Managers need to be careful that new claims do not conflict with or undermine the brand’s existing meaning, but rather build on it.

• Why and how? 

Newproduct development efforts often yield improved products and services. A brand repositioning can leave the fundamental value claim in place, but offer more persuasive evidence through the inclusion of a new ingredient or upgraded feature.

• Relative to whom? 

Sometimes brand repositioning involves comparing the product or service to a new set of competitors. Here, the brand’s managers redefine the playing field.

gender-bending: a strategy for repositioning a brand that has historically targeted one gender to attract the other

Some brands choose to launch a subbrand to reach out to new target markets. Others use their existing brand as an endorser brand.

But the real key to successful brand positioning is to find ways to seamlessly fit into consumers’ lives, rather than conquer their minds.

6. other positioning strategies

• reverse positioning:

Sometimes brands succeed by stripping away the expected points of parity in their product category and offering consumers something less, and, at the same time, something more in their positioning statements

• breakaway positioning

When brands find themselves stuck in low-opportunity product categories, breakaway positioning

provides a way to escape by leaping into a new category.

• Stealth positioning

Sometimes product or service categories become tainted. Consumers become wary to purchase products in categories where they have previously been disappointed by unsatisfactory performance or intimidated by the technical expertise required. To overcome such difficulties, stealth positioning allows brands to conceal the true nature of their products by associating them with a different category