Brief introduction of Brand positioning strategy

The purpose of brand positioning is to create a distinctive brand personality, to shape a unique brand image, so as to meet the needs of target consumers. Brand positioning is a very creative activity, there is no fixed mode. If there is a fixed pattern, the difference between the brand will be greatly reduced, the impact of the brand will be weakened, the value of the existence of the brand will be greatly compromised. According to incomplete statistics, common and in recent years there are dozens of kinds of brand positioning strategy, many of which can be used alone, can also be combined to achieve better results. The following is a brief introduction to some of the most common brand positioning strategies.

I. Chief Positioning

Chief positioning is the pursuit of the industry or a certain aspect of the "first" market positioning. The "first" position is admirable because it shows that the brand is leading the market. Once the brand occupies a leading position, the title "first" will produce focus, aura, magnetic field and "nuclear fission" function, with the following brands do not have the competitive advantage. Xerox is the first of the Copier brand, IBM's overall strength is much stronger than Xerox, but the copier produced by IBM is always unable to compete with Xerox, and Kodak enters the "immediate image" market and competes with "Pat", which results in a small market share. The basis of the chief positioning is that people tend to only pay attention to the "first", the most profound impression of the psychological law. For example, the first person to sail around the world, the first person to ascend the moon. In the information explosion, commodity economy developed today, the brand more Shijian, consumers will only remember those top brands, especially the first brand, and most brands have no memory.

Once the brand becomes the industry "first", as long as the enterprise is good at operating, continuous innovation, can maintain this position. From 1923 onwards, Coca-Cola (COLA), Colgate (Colgate), Gillette (Gillette), Goodyear (Goldyear), Good time (Hershey ' s) Home Lok (Kellogg's), Kodak (Kodak), Lipton ( Lipton), Manhattan (Manhattan), Nabisco (Nabisco) and other ten brands, in addition to Manhattan, the remaining 9 species still maintain the first advantage.

Of course, not all enterprises have the strength to use the chief positioning strategy, only those large, powerful enterprises have the ability to operate. For most enterprises, we can develop the competitive advantage of some aspects of the brand and get the position of competition. For example, Dia Card (Dial) soap is the first of deodorant soap, Posc brand racing car is a small sports car first, and so on.

Ii. strengthening the positioning

To strengthen the positioning means to strengthen the positioning of their image in the eyes of consumers. When the enterprise can not beat the opponent from the front, or at a disadvantage in the competition, it is possible to consciously highlight the advantages of a certain aspect of the brand, impress the consumers, and win the competition. Seven-happy Soda told consumers "not Cola"; The Richardson thermostat told consumers that "I am not an air-conditioner"; Mary companies know their products are not Kande and Dristan opponents, so they will be their own cold medicine NyQuil positioning as "night cold medicine", told consumers this is a kind of new drugs in the evening, thus achieved success.

Iii. analogy positioning

Analogy positioning is a kind of positioning strategy to determine the market position by comparing with the competition brand. Its essence is one kind of occasion localization or the reaction type localization. Take the potential of competitors, foil their own brand image. When almost all the car manufacturers are in the pursuit of the car design longer, lower, more beautiful, the beetle looks small and ugly. If you use the traditional method of marketing, it is bound to try to conceal shortcomings, exaggerate the advantages, such as the photo shoot more beautiful, to promote the unique quality of the beetle or other. The beetle, however, positioned the brand as "small" and produced an ad: "Think about it as a small Sgt." "Its positioning has been hugely successful. In analogy positioning, the selection of reference objects is an important problem. Generally speaking, only with the popularity, reputation of high brand to compare, can occasion elevate their own value. The 1960s, the United States DDB Advertising company for the love of the car rental company created the "second declaration", is the use of analogy positioning to achieve success in the classic. Evis's market share has risen by 28% as it cleverly established ties with market-leading brands, and has greatly distanced itself from the old national company. At present, the use of analogy positioning of the fierce commercial warfare often occurs between the network software and hardware vendors. The July 19, 2001 issue of the Far East Economic Review (Far Eastern Economic Review) published an entire version of Oracle's AD. Oracle claims that its SAP management software is 4 times times more efficient than IBM's software, and that "customer interest in Oracle and IBM software is 10:1", which is no more straightforward.

Iv. positioning of the space file

No product can have all the competitive advantages of similar products, nor can it occupy the whole market of similar products. The market always has some empty files which are valued by consumers and have not been developed. Being good at finding and discovering such a market is an important choice for the success of brand positioning. M produced by the American company

Generally speaking, the market gap mainly has the following kinds:

(a) Time gap

Some textile and apparel enterprises in the summer launched down jacket, feather quilt, sweater, woolen; some air-conditioning plants, ice cream plant in the summer before the arrival of the increase in brand awareness, or in the winter sales of its products; when the cotton textile gradually forgotten, the chemical synthetic fiber swept the market, some businesses have launched a pure cotton uniform, refreshing. These are typical examples of using time slots.

(ii) Age gap

Age is an important variable in population subdivision. Enterprises can be based on the competitive advantage of products, looking for the same products neglected by the age segment for their brand positioning. Coca-Cola launched the cool brand fruit juice, in the marketing industry as a successful model, an important reason is aimed at the children's juice drink market without leading brand of the market space.

(iii) Gender gap

In modern society, the status of men and women is increasingly equal, and gender roles are less stringent in many industries. For some brands, the formation of a certain gender image, conducive to maintaining a stable customer base. such as a suit to reflect the natural elegance of men, yarn, skirts are emphasized women's soft and dignified. Marlboro is the leader of the male cigarette market, it is difficult to have the brand to shake it's unique position. Lorillard's Luke cigarettes were advertised as "A walk through the Kankakee to Kokomo,luke", trying to squeeze a chunk out of the men's cigarette market, with only a minimal market share; Likewise, the US slim cigarette Sims has the largest share of the female cigarette market, while the other makes Eve (Eve) fail. The reason is that the losers came too late. Jin Li, originally a "Man's World", later tried to produce feminine supplies, diluting its brand image.

(iv) Gap in usage

Consumer habits are different, some people like small packaging, commonly used to buy, easy to carry; some people like large packaging, one purchase long-term use. Use of the volume of empty files, sometimes received unexpected effects. For example, shampoo, 2ml small packaging, also has a large 500ml packaging, different packaging can meet the needs of different consumers, increase sales. In order to make a difference in the high-end wine market, Zhang Yu Company under its under the Zhang Yukaster Winery a new product, took a new direct sales model-the whole barrel order, the price of 80,000 yuan per barrel. This direct sales set the smallest trading unit for barrels (225L per barrel, that is, 750ml/bottles, a total of 300 bottles), and therefore commonly known as wine on the barrel sold.

(e) High-priced market gap

The market can be divided into high price market and low-priced market according to the price of commodity. For luxury goods like watches and perfumes, it is often very effective to position themselves in high-priced markets. For example, "the most expensive perfume in the world is only the pleasure card", "Why should you invest in the count (Piaget), which is the most expensive table in the world?"

The high price strategy is also called the skim fat pricing strategy. Enterprises in order to pursue the maximization of profits, in the initial stage of the new product listing, will use the customer's novelty psychology, the product price set higher. America's Renault, DuPont, and Pat-Li have all used this strategy. In 1945, for example, Renault introduced an atomic pen production technology from Argentina, with an investment of about $260,000 trillion, with a production cost of $0.8 per pen and a price of $12.5.

Six months later, Renault not only recovered all the investment, but also gained nearly 6 times times the profits of the investment.

(vi) Low-price market gap

Low-price market products are generally popular products, consumers in shopping when the first thought of the brand is located in the low-priced market brand. In China, people talk about instant coffee, the first thought is Nestle, but when it comes to cheap instant coffee, the first thing to think about is God. Although domestic low-cost instant coffee a lot, but from the current point of view, Force God occupied the Low-cost market space.

The 1990s, the U.S. aviation industry was very depressed, 1992 the entire industry loss of 2 billion U.S. dollars. In contrast to this slump, Southwest Airlines, which has been a success in 1992, grew by 25% per cent of its revenues. Southwest Airlines is largely credited with consumers ' recognition of their low prices. In order to promote their low price image, the company's president Clare has personally walked into the TV news program. On the show, Claire heads a briefcase and says that if any passenger feels shabby about the company's flight, the company sends him a bag. When the host asked why, Clare said: "Pack the money!" The money saved by Southwest Airlines can be filled with a full bag. Toyota in the United States to promote the Lexus, the Lexus picture and Mercedes-Benz pictures tied together to increase the title of "38000 dollars to buy a car worth 75000 of dollars, this is the first time in history." ”

Some enterprises, their marketing objectives not only to make enterprises profit, but also in line with the long-term interests of consumers, conducive to social progress and development. They aim to be more socially responsible in pricing, but not many of these high-quality businesses. For example, the United States of America, Macquarie Company invented the world's first pacemaker, the company from the greatest welfare of mankind, in line with the principle of saving lives, adhere to the social responsibility for the product pricing objectives, the price of the product set lower.

V. Product category Positioning

Linking a product to a particular product category to create a brand association is called product class positioning. One way of positioning a product category is to tell consumers that they belong to a certain product, such as the Pacific Ocean World as an "educational institution", and the other way to define themselves as a product category that is antithetical to competitors or significantly different from competitors, such as "Non cola" beverages.

Vi. positioning of Senior Club

That is, one of the members of a small group with a good reputation. When the brand does not have the industry first and some valuable unique attributes, it is a good location to be the "Senior Club". Tcl Electronic played "one of the three famous brands of domestic television", suddenly squeezed into the eyes of consumers; Chrysler announced that it was one of America's "Big Three auto companies", making consumers feel that Chrysler, like the first two, was a powerful, well-known sedan, narrowing the gap between the big three.

Vii. Functional Positioning

The essence of functional positioning is to highlight the effectiveness of products, generally in highlighting the special effects of products and good quality. Product function is the core of the overall product, in fact, the product is accepted by consumers, mainly because it has a certain function, can bring some benefits to consumers, to meet the needs of consumers. If the product has a distinctive function, then the product brand is the obvious difference advantage. For example, Honda fuel-saving, Volvo Safe, BMW operation has the advantage of soft, smooth hair, pan stop can provide nutrition for hair, sea fly silk crumbs outstanding. Red Bull Bull from Thailand is "tired of drinking Red Bull", emphasizing its function is to quickly replenish energy and eliminate fatigue.

Viii. Outward Orientation

Product appearance is the external characteristics of products, is one of the basic attributes of products, consumers will leave a first impression, and the first impression is often consumers accept or reject the important basis for products. If you choose the appearance of the product as the basis for brand positioning, it will make the brand more fresh. such as Barker cold medicine products are divided into white, black two colors, and change the traditional cold medicine to take the way. These two new forms are itself a positioning strategy of the product, and Baiga black name also expresses the brand's form characteristics and appeal points.

Ix. Interest Orientation

The customer buys the product because the product satisfies some of its needs and brings some benefit. Interest positioning is the product of some functional characteristics and customer concerns, to the customer commitment to the interests of the demand, to highlight the brand personality, to achieve a successful location. For example: "Colgate, no Cavities": "to protect the voice, please choose golden Throat bao." Motorola and Nokia are all well-known brands in the mobile phone market, but they emphasize different points of interest, Motorola stressed "small, thin, light", Nokia propaganda "no radiation, strong signal."

The choice of interest point can be one, or two or more than two. If the company Umbongo brand positioning as "for the mother to bring health, for children to create fun." Because consumers do not like complexity, their memory of information is limited, so generally speaking, the interests of a single as well.

X. Emotional positioning

Emotion is the bond that sustains brand loyalty, it can arouse consumer's association and resonance. Emotional positioning is to use the brand to bring consumers emotional experience and positioning. Haier to "sincere to forever" as the emotional contact to inspire customers, win customers favor; Nice carving brand washing powder "... Mom, I can help you with your work. "The truth reveals the feelings of the consumers, nice carving brand more deep human heart." Pepsi has developed an advertising campaign on the theme of "It's pepsi,for those who thinks Young" (Pepsi, the younger person in mind), which stimulates people's youthful vitality and makes it more and more consumers. Who doesn't want to keep a young heart? This is the eternal pursuit of mankind. Electrolux entered the Chinese market when asked: "Refrigerator noise you have to endure is not a day, two days, but 10 years, 15 years", Electrolux "good so that you can depend on the rest of your life, static so that you will not be aware of the night." This very rich pro * * * Color language, in addition to making Chinese consumers feel warm and sincere, the brand image has also been recognized-"mute" is the character and style of Electrolux.

Effective branding needs to be properly and securely linked to deep-rooted human emotions. Great brands are aware of the need to respect the material and emotional needs of their customers. However, the emotional bond established with the huge customer base is not foolproof. As American brand expert Scott. Bedbery said: "The negative emotional response is serious, even if only a small number of customers have this reaction, can have a strong impact." As the media increasingly judge large companies, small errors can become the source of the company's disaster, spending years of effort to build a brand trust bond will break in an instant. To make a bond based on a deeper foundation, it is necessary to give the customer respect. Always remember that love and hate are often only a few miles away. ”

Xi. positioning of self-expression

Self-expression positioning is to express the unique brand image and promote the unique brand personality, so that the brand becomes the carrier of consumer expressing personal value and aesthetic appeal. Like Baker's beer mentioned earlier, "Drink Baker, listen to Yourself", the United States of America, "do not take the usual road", are in this category. The spokesperson of the Queer Fruit juice Big Head doll, right hand hips, the left hand is holding the juice drink, intoxicated to say: "Qoo ..." This is a bit clumsy, but not easy to discourage the cool image just in line with children "happy, like to help people but love to imitate adults" mentality, the children see the cool son as seen himself, and thus won the children's favorite. The "Man with a woman's heart" is full of temptation for men. These brands are also in line with the psychology of consumer self-expression to become a strong brand.

12. Cultural orientation

The brand connotation is the culture, has the good cultural connotation the brand to have the unique charm, can bring the spiritual satisfaction and the enjoyment to the consumer. Cultural orientation is to highlight the brand's cultural connotation in order to form the personalized brand differences. Zhang Yu Wine "legendary quality, Hundred years Changyu" brand positioning, revealed the wine culture connotation, set up a unique brand image, so that a legendary quality of the national old enterprise Yiran upright; Confucian home wine will be positioned in the "home Wine", a "Confucian wine, let people think home" advertising language, caused by the various associations of consumers. Seven Wolf brands can be said to be a model of cultural positioning. Success and the success of the "Men's group" most of the time is only the surface of the brilliant, but it is in this group of people to reflect a spiral in the life of courage, perseverance, and actively challenge the heroic spirit of life, this is the seven Wolf brand image of the cultural connotation of the place. After years of brand culture integration, the Seven wolves have become the pursuit of achievement, the courage to challenge the 30-40-year-old men as the main target consumer groups of men's fine image. This distinctive male spiritual culture, so that the seven wolves made the Chinese male group fashion consumer life of the spokesperson status. Through the accurate grasp of the male spirit, seven wolves will clothing, cigarettes, alcohol, tea products and other industries in the "male consumer culture", and around this brand culture, the development of various products and positioning: clothing-self-confidence, modesty, cigarettes-calm, thinking, wine-chic, uninhibited, tea-quiet, reverie. This kind of male's main character characteristic all integrates into the brand each kind of product the phenomenon, in our country enterprise also very rare.

Cultural positioning can highlight the brand's cultural value, and then into brand value, the cultural wealth into a differentiated competitive advantage, so that products in the fierce market competition to maintain a strong vitality. Once the brand culture resonates with the culture and value of the consumer's inner identity, the energy it releases is very considerable, and it will eventually translate into a huge value-added brand and the profits it brings to the company.

13, consumer positioning

Consumer positioning is to connect products and consumers, to a certain type of consumer groups as the object of appeal, highlighting products for this category of consumer groups to serve, thus establishing a unique brand image. For example, "Mrs. Oral liquid, full femininity", "Pepsi, a new generation of choice". Guangdong's Hakka Niang wine positioning itself as "women's own Wine", which is attractive to female consumers. Because the general high degree of wine, the majority of women do not enjoy the feast, Hakka Niang wine declared since the "Woman's own wine", leaving a person equivalent to "XO is a man's wine" strong impression.

14, consumer situation positioning

Consumer situation positioning is the brand and a certain environment of the use of the situation linked to arouse consumers to the brand association. For example: "After 8 o'clock" Markley pancakes claim to be "suitable for dessert after 8 o'clock", Mikawei (milky Way) calls it "desserts to eat between meals", which establish a distinction between the time periods. Consumers who want dessert after 8 o'clock will naturally think of the brand "after 8 o'clock"; When you want to have dessert during the time between meals, you will first think of Mikawei. Nestlé has conducted a survey on the drinking status of Nestle coffee, finding that consumers drink Nestle coffee in 9 different environments: 1. After getting up in the morning, 2, lunch and dinner, 3, lunch, 4, dinner, 5, dining with the guests, 6, business negotiations, 7, evening work, 8, dinner with colleagues, 9, weekends. The above 9 kinds of application, can make Nestle Coffee get strong brand association.

Service positioning

Service is the organic part of the brand, is the support of the brand. In today's society, it is not easy for companies to keep the absolute lead in technology, products and productivity. It has become a new characteristic of brand competition to rely on characteristic service to increase its own ability, to win customer loyalty by service, and to continuously improve customer satisfaction. To serve as the positioning point of the brand has become the ideal choice for many enterprises ' brand positioning. For example: "IBM is the service", the service as the main brand characteristics, as the main means of shaping the brand.

16. National positioning

The enterprise may take the nationality as the positioning foothold, will place the brand in "the National creation" the position, in order to arouse the consumer's patriotic sentiment and the national pride, causes them to purchase the desire, makes the purchase decision. For example: "Haier-Made in China", "Changhong, to industry serve the country, to national prosperity as its responsibility", "very cola, the Chinese own cola."

17. USP Positioning

USP is the initials of the unique selling proposition in English, which means "distinctive selling selling point", that is, a product offers only one selling points, which is unique. The USP positioning strategy is based on the research of the product and the target consumer, looking for the most unique parts of the product characteristics that are most suitable for the customers ' needs and competitors. For example, robust pure water "27-layer purification" is the domestic USP positioning of the classic. M (Tide), Boulder (Bold), Drayft (Dreft), Ivory Snow (Ivoly Snow), Guairá (Era) and other brands of washing powder, each brand has its unique USP: "Decontamination thoroughly", boulder "make clothing soft", Drayft "suitable for washing baby clothes" , Ivory Snow "decontamination fast", Guairá claimed "to paint and other stubborn dirt," and so on. Through USP positioning, the development of a variety of brands, occupy a large market space.