Fluent Essays

Following your review, prepare a 600 - 700 word discussion from 2 case studies to the following discussion question:Why is branding so crucial to an organization’s success?Using your HBR Coursepack, review the following core marketing reading(s):Brands and Brand Equity ANDBrand PositioningThe reading on Brands and Brand Equity aims to combine theory and practice by summarizing and integrating the latest theories and models in branding research and illustrating them with examples from diverse industries, including stories of both success and failure for well-known brands to which we can relate.The reading on Brand Positioning examines the importance of brand positioning in marketing. Effectively positioning an offering in a distinctive way determines a firm’s success or failure. The best marketing managers understand the importance of brand positioning in creating a sustainable competitive advantage for each of their good or service offerings. ._marketing_reading_brand_mpositioning.pdf ._marketing_reading_brands_and_brand_equity.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. Marketing Sunil Gupta, Series Editor READING + INTERACTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS Brand Positioning JILL AVERY Harvard Business School SUNIL GUPTA Harvard Business School 8197 | Published: February 20, 2015 1 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. Table of Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................3 2 Essential Reading ..................................................................................................................................4 2.1 Brand Positioning ...........................................................................................................................4 2.2 Crafting a Positioning Statement ...................................................................................................5 2.3 Staking Out a Unique Selling Proposition .....................................................................................7 2.4 The Three Cs Model ......................................................................................................................10 2.4.1 Consumer Analysis ............................................................................................................10 2.4.2 Competitive Analysis .........................................................................................................15 2.4.3 Company Analysis .............................................................................................................21 2.5 Brand Repositioning .....................................................................................................................24 2.5.1 Balancing Consistency and Change .................................................................................26 2.5.2 Repositioning an Identity Brand........................................................................................ 27 3 Supplemental Reading.........................................................................................................................31 3.1 Positioning Differently ..................................................................................................................31 4 Key Terms ............................................................................................................................................33 5 For Further Reading .............................................................................................................................34 6 Endnotes ..............................................................................................................................................35 7 Index .....................................................................................................................................................36 This reading contains links to online interactive illustrations and video, denoted by the icons above. To access these exercises, you will need a broadband Internet connection. Verify that your browser meets the minimum technical requirements by visiting http://hbsp.harvard.edu/tech-specs. Jill Avery, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and Sunil Gupta, Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, developed this Core Reading. Copyright © 2015 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 2 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. 1 INTRODUCTION A consumer stands before a set of supermarket shelves, staring at the myriad choices in the bottled water category. Before she can choose one, there’s a multitude of questions to answer. After all, in today’s marketplace, water is much more than just H2O. Sparkling or still water? Vitamin-enriched or energyboosting? With zero calories or sweetened and fruit-flavored? A small bottle for lunch boxes or extra-large for long-term storage? In a slender glass bottle evoking fine art or packaged in lightweight, eco-friendly plastic? Beyond these functional differences, each brand tells its own unique story. Fiji claims that equatorial trade winds purify its water. Perrier describes how its mineral water’s bubbles originate on the Languedoc plain in southern France when rainwater seeps into the ground and combines with volcanic gases. Poland Spring touts its Maine roots, while Crystal Geyser highlights its alpine origins near Mount Shasta. Dasani and Aquafina, respectively owned by The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, attempt to hide their corporate parent affiliations and their less glamorous sources (the public water supply). Instead, Dasani boasts about its environmentally conscious bottle design and its reverse-osmosis filtering process. Aquafina highlights its trademarked HydRO-7™ seven-step purification process. Source: Photo by Kim Yanoshik Each brand tries to stake a particular claim of superiority—the cleanest, freshest, purest, healthiest, most natural, most environmentally sensitive, most socially conscious, most fashionable—that resonates with a particular type of consumer. The consumer’s choice will depend on how strongly she perceives that a particular brand offers the best solution to her needs. Is she a mother who cares about her children’s health? Is she a hostess throwing an important dinner party? Is she preparing for surviving a natural disaster? Is she a concerned citizen of the world? Each brand is positioned to appeal to a different customer need. 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 3 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. This reading addresses the principles of brand 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. Brand positioning provides a strategic roadmap for creating powerful, resonant, and unique messages to help a company’s products and services stand out amid the cacophony of the marketplace. In this reading, we highlight a process for formulating a brand’s positioning statement that delivers competitive advantage by using the analysis and synthesis of consumer, competitive, and company factors. We will explore the types of positions companies can claim and the creative ways in which they can differentiate brands from one another. Finally, we will examine the challenges associated with repositioning brands, including the tension between maintaining consistency and adjusting to changing consumer preferences. 2 ESSENTIAL READING 2.1 Brand Positioning In their classic book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, branding consultants Al Ries and Jack Trout proclaim, “Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of a prospect,” reinforcing the notion that what is important to measure in positioning is not the brand manager’s intent, but the brand positioning’s actual end result—how consumers catalog, classify, and remember a brand. 1 A brand’s position represents its location vis-à-vis its competitors in the mental maps that consumers construct to represent the range of possible solutions to their problems. Strong brand positions are powerful because they help consumers categorize brands by their similarities and, at the same time, distinguish and differentiate between brands based on their differences. Regardless of a company’s strategic intent in positioning its brand, consumers actually determine the brand’s position by their response to it. Marketing consultant Harry Beckwith explains the difference: “A position is a cold-hearted, no-nonsense statement of how you are perceived in the minds of your prospects. A positioning statement, by contrast, expresses how you wish to be perceived.” 2 (For a detailed perspective, see the sidebar “Ted Levitt on Positioning.”) 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 4 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. Ted Levitt on Positioning Marketing experts often regard Theodore “Ted” Levitt, an economist, Harvard Business School professor, and former editor of the Harvard Business Review, as a founder of modern marketing. His provocative Harvard Business Review articles lambasted marketing managers for their shortsighted views of their businesses. 3 Levitt argued that 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’ lives—the “value proposition.” He realized that consumers attach value to a product or service in proportion to its perceived ability to solve their problems or meet their needs. Stating that there was no such thing as a “commodity product,” Levitt understood that even something as basic as water could be differentiated. He suggested that a company’s deep understanding of its 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 as a commodity. Levitt declared that commodity products are simply failures of marketing. The problem, he claimed, does not lie with the products themselves, but exists within the minds of consumers: “There is no such thing as a commodity, only people who act and think like commodities.” In Levitt’s view, managers do not need to change the products they are selling; instead, they need to fix their positioning in consumers’ minds. In today’s marketplace, we see brands like Dole, Chiquita, and Purdue creatively differentiating products in categories once viewed as commodities (fruit and poultry). Source: Adapted from “Marketing Success through Differentiation—of Anything” by Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review, January–February 1980. Copyright © 1980 by the Harvard Business Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved. 2.2 Crafting a Positioning Statement Companies begin the brand positioning process by creating a positioning statement, a strategic document that communicates the unique value the brand would offer to a particular target market segment. Positioning statements distill the brand’s value proposition into a compelling answer to the all-important question, “Why should I buy?” Consumers in most product and service categories are bombarded with too many alternatives, with most seemingly undifferentiated from one another, making the selection process very difficult. A provocative positioning statement can make the difference between a brand’s 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 5 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. getting lost in the sea of choices and standing out as the best solution for the consumer. Note that, unlike brand slogans or taglines, positioning statements are strategic in nature, developed for an internal managerial audience rather than an external consumer audience. They help guide the tactical execution of the brand and are often the starting point for developing the marketing messages that will be delivered to consumers. Positioning statements contain four essential components: • For whom, for when, for where? An explicit description of the target market segment that helps consumers easily discern which brands directly address their specific needs and which don’t. This component can outline a particular type of person (e.g., mothers concerned about their children’s health), a particular usage situation (e.g., when you need to decorate your dinner table), and/or a particular usage location (e.g., when you are on the go). For more on how managers can choose a target market segment, see Core Reading: Segmentation and Targeting (HBP No. 8219). • What value? A simple, straightforward description of the unique value claim the brand offers, written from the consumer’s viewpoint. This will become the thing for which the brand is known. There are four types of value that customers can derive from a product or service: economic value, functional value, experiential value, and/or social value. Products that provide tangible monetary savings either at purchase or over their longterm use offer consumers economic value. When comparing many products (e.g., mobile phones or laptops), consumers often consider not only price but also different features, or the functional value of the products. Many consumers, however, buy products for their experiential value—intangible psychological and emotional values associated with the brand. Finally, in many settings, consumers derive social value from products or services. Facebook’s value comes from sharing information, pictures, and videos with friends. For more on how customers derive value from the brands they use, see Core Reading: Creating Customer Value (HBP No. 8176). • Why and how? Evidence that provides consumers with reasons to believe the brand’s claims. Supporting evidence for the product’s value can come from logical arguments, scientific and technological data, consumer testimonials, celebrity or expert endorsements, product demonstrations and experiments, and independent agency seals of approval. • Relative to whom? An explicit description of the competitive set in which the brand classifies itself and the alternatives consumers may be considering. This helps consumers establish a frame of reference for the purchase decision. This section of the positioning statement can either help consumers classify the brand as similar to other brands or product categories they are already familiar with, or differentiate and distinguish it as something completely different. For example, Hyundai—known for lowcost, functional vehicles—launched a luxury automobile by positioning it as “a brand new luxury car as spacious as the Mercedes S-Class, yet priced like a C-Class.” This statement drew both a parallel to and a distinction between Hyundai and one of the world’s leading luxury car brands. When 7-Up 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 6 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. wanted to differentiate itself from market leaders Coca-Cola and PepsiCola, it positioned itself as “the Uncola,” offering customers something different to quench their thirst. Sandal maker Sanuk prominently declares on its point of purchase displays, “These are not shoes” to clearly differentiate its Sidewalk Surfers as being more comfortable than other footwear. The four components of positioning statements can be summarized in this general format: For [target market], Brand X is the only brand among all [competitive set] that [unique value claim] because [reasons to believe]. Below is an example of how three bottled water companies might use this format to position their brands to address three distinct target markets with unique value claims: • For [upscale consumers looking to make a design statement with their choice of water],Voss is the only brand among all [bottled waters] that offers [the purest and most distinctive drinking experience] because [it derives from an artesian source in southern Norway and is packaged in a stylish, iconic glass bottle]. • For [middle-class consumers looking for an affordable and accessible luxury], Perrier is the only brand among all [bottled waters] that offers [an elegant, sparkling, and refreshing water, with just a hint of zaniness] because [it is naturally carbonated by volcanic gases deep beneath the soil in southern France and features clever bottle designs by Andy Warhol]. • For [millennial consumers who are socially conscious], Ethos is the only brand among all [bottled waters] that [cares about solving the world’s clean water crisis], because [it donates five cents for every bottle sold to programs that help support water, sanitation, and hygiene education programs in water-stressed countries]. 2.3 Staking Out a Unique Selling Proposition Brand managers should craft positioning statements to focus on a single, most important claim that distinguishes the product from the competition, rather than to include a laundry list of all of the attributes, benefits, and values offered by the brand. According to advertising executive Bill Bernbach, “You’ve got to live with your product. You’ve got to be steeped in it. . . . Indeed, if you have not crystallized into a single purpose, a single theme, what you want to tell the reader, you cannot be creative.” 4 In our advertising-saturated culture, simple messages increase brand recall and receptivity. Writing a positioning statement becomes a challenging endeavor, since managers must choose the claim most likely to resonate with consumers. 8197 | Core Reading: Brand Positioning 7 This document is authorized for use only by Jalay Raval in BADM 733 Summer 2020 taught by VONDA MOORE, University of the Cumberlands from May 2020 to Aug 2020. For the exclusive use of J. Raval, 2020. Brands often highlight their most important value claim through the use of a unique selling proposition. First devised by advertising pioneer Rosser Reeves, a unique selling proposition (USP) is a type of value claim that offers a prospective customer a specific, unique, and superior reason to purchase a product. Reeves felt strongly that a successful product had to actually be better than its competitors; while clever ads could move substandard product off the shelf initially, the disappointing customer experience thereafter would eventually doom the product to failure. He pushed his clients to build superior performance into their products, claiming that the USP must hinge on a specific benefit that competitors could not copy and that was resonant and relevant enough to persuade consumers to buy. 5 USPs anchor some of the most famous advertising taglines in history, such as FedEx’s “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”; Domino’s Pizza’s “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free”; and M&M’s “The chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” Similarly, Procter & Gamble (P&G) has long been a proponent of using USPs as a core of its brands’ positions. Bounty paper towels are the “quicker pickerupper”; Tide laundry detergent claims, “If it’s gotta be clean, it’s gotta be Tide”; Pampers promises “the driest diaper”; Charmin toilet paper offers “superior softness and absorbency”; and Head & Shoulders shampoo “effectively targets the source of dandruff” and “provides the dual benefits of a healthy scalp and great-looking hair.” Rosser Reeves proposed the USP to capture the “rational” advertising strategies of the 1940s and 1950s, which viewed customers as logical purchasers who would listen to a reasoned argument. However, since the 1960s, marketers have acknowledged that, when making purchasing decisions, consume ... Purchase answer to see full attachment