Positioning is the marketing technique in which marketers try to create an image or identity for a product, brand, or company. It is the 'place' a product occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market. Positioning is something that is done in the minds of the target market. A product's position is how potential buyers see the product. Positioning is expressed relative to the position of competitors.
Re-positioning involves changing the identity of a product, relative to the identity of competing products, in the collective minds of the target market.
The ability to spot a positioning opportunity is a sure test of a persons' marketing ability. Successful positioning strategies are usually rooted in a product's sustainable competitive advantage. The most common basis' for constructing a product positioning strategy are:
- positioning on specific product features
- positioning on specific benefits, needs, or solutions
- positioning on specific use categories
- positioning on specific usage occations
- positioning against another product
- positioning through product class dissociation
More generally, there are three types of positioning concepts:
- 1 functional positions
- solve problems
- provide benefits to customers
- 2 symbolic positions
- self-image enhancement
- ego identification
- belongingness and social meaningfullness
- affective fulfillment
- 3 experimental positions
- provide sensory stimulation
- provide cognitive stimulation
Positioning is facilitated by a graphical technique called perceptual mapping, various survey techniques, and statistical techniques like multi-dimensional scaling, factor analysis, cojoint analysis, and logit analysis. Generally, the product positioning process involves:
- 1 identifying competing products
- 2 identifying the attributes (also called dimensions) that define the product 'space'
- 3 collecting information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each product on the relevent attributes
- 4 determine each products' share of mind
- 5 determine each products' current location in the product space
- 6 determine the target market's prefered combination of attributes (refered to as an ideal vector)
- 7 examine the fit between:
- the positions of competing products
- the position of your product
- the position of the ideal vector
- 8 select optimum position
see also marketing, target market, product management, market segment, product differentiation