A sports drink positioned as healthy for teens could be promoted by young athletes.
Positioning is the use of marketing tools to make a firm's offering stand out from the competition. A well-positioned brand occupies a unique niche in the minds of consumers. This niche is created and sustained by the marketing strategy, particularly through tactical choices involving product design, promotional messages, price and distribution.
Target
At the heart of a firm's marketing strategy is the selection of its target, a group of consumers with high potential to buy its brand. These consumers may share demographic characteristics such as age and sex, and/or a distinctive lifestyle such as frequent travelers. However the target is defined, the brand's positioning must be tailored to the needs and wants of those consumers. For example, a golf club could be positioned to avid weekend players as a brand designed for professionals but priced for amateurs.
Competition
A product's positioning is established relative to competition; the idea is to convince consumers not only that the brand is good, but that it can meet their needs better than alternatives. One way is to focus on points of differentiation. For example, a children's cereal maker could emphasize that its products are just as tasty as others but sugar-free. Another approach, called head-to-head positioning, is when a brand is positioned as superior on the same key attributes offered by competitors, such as taste or freshness.
Tactics
Positioning tactics usually involve all four tools in the marketing mix. Choices in use product, promotion, place and price must be coordinated and/or integrated so as to build synergies and avoid inconsistencies. For example, to be successfully positioned as healthier than the competition, a sports drink aimed at teens could be fortified with more vitamins than any other brand, promoted by young athletes, sold at youth-oriented events such as skateboarding contests and offered with frequent price discounts.
Repositioning
Sometimes a brand must overhaul its positioning in order to respond to evolving consumer needs. This change, called a repositioning, may focus on a product feature that was previously irrelevant. For example, a brand of baking soda could once be positioned as the best addition to homemade cakes. But as declining numbers of consumers baked from scratch, it became necessary to reposition such products as cleaning agents. Repositioning can also be prompted by new competitive threats or other changes in the business environment.
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