Developing a Positioning Strategy

Differentiation—consumers must find something unique and meaningful about a market offering. 

These differences may be based directly on the product and/or service, employees, channels, image.

Kotler and Keller, 2013 

• identifying a set of differentiating competitive advantages on which to build a position,
• choosing the right competitive advantages, and selecting an overall positioning strategy,
• communicate and deliver the chosen position to the market. 

To find points of differentiation, marketers must think through the customer’s entire experience with the company’s offer.

Positioning

How a product is defined by consumers on important attributes—the place a product occupies in consumers’ minds relative to competing products.

Armstrong, Kotler & Opresnik, (2017)

The positioning process can be summarized in three steps.

(1) determining a frame of reference by identifying the target market and relevant competition

(2) identifying the optimal points of parity and points of difference brand associations given that frame of reference

(3) creating a brand mantra to summarize the positioning and essence of the brand

• Category parity 

  • Category points-of-parity are attributes or benefits that consumers view as essential to a legitimate and credible offering within a certain product or service category. 

• Competition parity 

  • Competitive points-of-parity are associations designed to overcome perceived weaknesses of the brand. A

Kotler e Keller, 2019

• Desirable to consumer.

• Deliverable by the company

• Differentiating from competitors.

Types of positioning 

• Atributes

• Benefits 

• Application and/or Use 

• User

• Competitive

• Convenience

• ...