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POSITIONING
We now turn to positioning a product. As we have stated, understanding customer needs and delivering more value than other products are the keys to winning and keeping customers. But in every segment there can only be one leader. That is, unless the customer recognizes distinctions exist between products. These distinctions can be drawn by highlighting differences in quality, price, performance and other things relevant to the customer. There can be multiple leaders in a single market. Take the automobile industry for example. Though every manufacturer builds cars, a BMW 750 is seen as a different car than a Honda Civic. Consumers recognize these differences because vendors practice product positioning. Product positioning entails differentiating a product from competitors by highlighting important attributes and benefits.
CHOOSING A POSITIONING STRATEGY
One way to accomplish this is to create advertising that draws a mental map of the product’s benefits in contrast to a competitor’s offering. By contrasting a product’s key features and benefits against the shortcomings of the competition, the customer will create a mental map in his mind differentiating the advertised product from the competition.
In today’s world, people in consumerist societies are bombarded with thousands of images every day. In order to process all of this information, studies have shown that people form product ladders in their minds. Product ladders are a mental ranking system, except, once a product has been accepted as the best in its category, it is very difficult for other products to displace it. For example, many people will be able to say with a great degree of confidence that David Beckham wears #7 on the back of his jersey. But can you recall the name of the player who wore the same number before him? Not so easy is it?
For products that failed to climb up to the highest step, the marketer has four options. The first is to strengthen their current position. Sony’s VAIO laptops are more expensive than comparable models. However, their laptops have long battery lives and one version of the product weighs less than 2kg, lending the company