Brand positioning strategies can be varied and ultimately affect all the branding decisions. A brand is a long-term entity so the brand positioning strategy needs to be planned with great care and deep thought.
Choosing Proper Brand Positioning Strategy Gives Following Benefits:
1) A great brand positioning strategy can protect the products and ultimately defines them as well.
2) A great brand positioning strategy can create and maintain your brand image and add to your overall brand value.
3) A great brand development strategy can drive up record profits for all your products and services.
4) A great brand positioning strategy can identify and govern the path to success for a brand.
5) A great brand positioning strategy can ensure longevity for your brand.
Your brand positioning strategy goes hand-in-hand with your product positioning strategy.
Here are the 6 best brand positioning strategies that you can use for creating wonderful and lasting brand value:
These brand positioning strategies are generally never used as standalone strategies but are used in various combinations. These combinations are decided after careful deliberation on long-term business objectives.
Click Infographic to enlarge
1) Quality Positioning:
Quality positioning emphasizes on showing the qualities of the products or services. The idea behind this strategy is that customers and end users wish to know if the products and services are durable, reliable and actually worth the price.
Volvo and Sony are excellent examples of quality positioning strategy.
2) Value or Price Positioning:
This strategy involves playing on the price point of a product or service. It is generally seen that a highly priced item can create an impression of having better value in the minds of the target customers. A higher priced item is considered to be more exclusive and less reachable to everyone.
A low priced item, on the other hand, creates the impression of affordability, and hence loses out on exclusivity.
All the luxury brands use this strategy. Example – Louis Vuitton, Mercedes, Rolex etc.
3) Benefit Positioning:
Benefit positioning strategy involves highlighting the best features of the brand and the benefits they can bring to your customers lives.
Mostly FMCG products use the benefit brand positioning strategy with great success.
4) Problem and Solution Positioning:
This strategy emphasizes depiction of an actual product or service, and the solutions they can bring to the customers’ lives. This strategy goes very well in combination with the benefits strategy.
Some of the specialized medical products like contraceptives use this strategy very well.
5) Competitor Based Positioning:
This strategy emphasizes positioning of your brand against the competitor’s brand. The advertising used with this branding strategy is mostly direct comparison with the competitor’s products or services.
Quality positioning strategy and problem and solutions strategy are very well used along with competitor based positioning strategy.
FMCG products like soaps and detergents use this strategy very well.
6) Celebrity Driven Positioning:
This strategy emphasizes endorsement of the product or service by a celebrity. This celebrity endorsement makes the end users and customers relate well with the product or service. They see their favourite stars using the products and services, talking about their benefits, and this makes them go for the purchase.
These days, celebrity endorsements are no longer associated with value or price positioning strategy. Rather, many unconventional everyday use products use celebrity driven positioning strategy quite successfully. Apparently, people love familiar faces talking about their favourite products and services.
Conclusion:
Brand positioning strategies have to be picked up carefully as they eventually define the asset value of your brand.
The branding strategy should be handled by professionals. This is where many startups make terrible mistakes by cutting down on hiring a professional.
To me, this seems like a terribly penny wise and pound foolish thing to do as it can eventually harm the longevity of the brand.
Do share your branding stories.
