CHAPTER 5
Positioning
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning
All rights reserved.
PowerPoint Presentation by Charlie Cook
The University of West Alabama
Eighth Edition
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
1. Appreciate the concept and practice of brand positioning.
2. Explain that positioning involves the creation of meaning and
that meaning is a constructive process involving the use of
signs and symbols.
3. Give details about how brand marketers position their brands
by drawing meaning from the culturally constituted world.
4. Describe how brands are positioned in terms of various types
of benefits and attributes.
5. Explicate two perspectives that characterize how consumers
process information and describe the relevance of each
perspective for brand positioning.
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–2
Introduction: Brand Positioning
• Positioning
 The key feature, benefit, or image
that the brand stands for in the target
audience’s collective mind
• Positioning Statement
 The central idea that encapsulates a
brand’s meaning and distinctiveness
vis-à-vis competitive brands
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–3
Positioning in Theory:
A Matter of Creating Meaning
• Semiotics
 The study of signs and the analysis of meaning-
producing events
• Semiotics Perspective
 Meaning is a constructive process determined by:
The message source’s choice of communication
elements
 The receiver’s unique social-cultural background
and mind-set at the time of exposure to a message

© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–4
Positioning in Theory:
A Matter of Creating Meaning (cont’d)
• A Sign
 Is words, visualizations, tactile objects, and
anything else perceivable by the senses
 Has a constructed meaning to the receiver
(interpreter) that is both idiosyncratic and
context dependent
• Marcom’s Positioning Goal
 To have consumers will interpret messages
exactly as they are intended
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–5
Figure 5.1
The
Thumbs-Up
Sign
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5–6
The Meaning of Meaning
• Meanings
 Are the thoughts and feelings evoked within a person
when presented with a sign in a particular context
 Are internal responses people hold for external stimuli
• Perceptual Fields
 Represent the sum total of a person’s experiences
that are stored in memory
 Facilitate effective marcom when there is
commonality in both the sender’s and the receiver’s
fields of experience
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–7
Meaning Transfer:
From Culture to Object to Consumer
• Socialization
 The process through which people learn cultural
values, form beliefs, and become familiar with the
physical manifestations, or artifacts, of these values
and beliefs
• Advertising in a Culturally Constituted World
 Advertisements become texts to be interpreted by
consumers from within their socio-cultural context
 Marcom attempts to use the meaning of well-known
symbols to transfer that meaning to their brand
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–8
Figure 5.2
V8 Advertisements Illustrating Contextual Meaning
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–9
Positioning in Practice: The Nuts and Bolts
• Brand Positioning
 Is essential to a successful Marcom program
• Effective Positioning Statement
 Conveys a consistent message
 Defines a brand’s competitive advantage
 Motivates customers to action
• Positioning Concept
 “Positioned in” the consumer’s mind
 “Positioned against” competing brands
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–10
Figure 5.3
Outcomes of Proposed Positioning
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5–11
Proposed Positioning Outcomes
Promote Competitors
• Position does not reflect competitive
advantage
• Position represents important reason for
brand selection decisions
• Any effort would serve other brand
selection decisions in same category
Loser
• Brand possesses no competitive
advantage
• Positioning basis does not motivate
consumers to want the brand
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Winner
• Positioned on a product feature or
benefit that has an advantage over
competitors
• Positioning gives consumers a
persuasive reason for trying the brand
SUTR
• Position represents a competitive
advantage for a trivial product feature or
benefit
• Position does not give compelling
reasons to want the brand
• Any effort will be hard work with little
progress
5–12
Figure 5.4
A Framework for Brand Positioning
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–13
Benefit Positioning
Appealing to
Consumer Needs
Functional
Needs
Symbolic
Needs
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Experiential
Needs
5–14
Categories of Consumer Needs
Functional
Needs
Symbolic
Needs
Experiential
Needs
Positioning communicates that the brand’s benefits are
capable of solving consumers’ consumption-related problems
Positioning attempts to associate brand ownership with a
desired group, role, or self-image
Positioning promotes brand’s extraordinary sensory value or
rich potential for cognitive stimulation
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–15
Figure 5.5
Croc Advertisement
Illustrating Appeal to
Functional Needs
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5–16
Figure 5.6
Dove Advertisement
Illustrating Appeal to
Experiential Needs
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5–17
Attribute Positioning
Attribute
Positioning
Product-Related
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Non-Product Related:
Usage and User Imagery
5–18
Figure 5.8
Ralph Lauren
Advertisement
Illustrating
Positioning
Based on
User Imagery
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–19
Figure 5.7
Highlander
Advertisement
Illustrating
Product-Related
Attribute
Positioning
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–20
Repositioning a Brand
Increase
competitiveness
Extend product
life cycle
Why Reposition
a Brand?
Refresh brand
image
Enter new market
segments
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–21
Implementing Positioning:
Know Thy Consumer
• Consumer Processing Model (CPM)
 Information and choice are a rational, cognitive,
systematic and reasoned process
• Hedonic, Experiential Model (HEM)
 Consumers’ processing of marcom messages and
behavior are driven by emotions in pursuit of fun,
fantasies, and feeling
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–22
Figure 5.9
Comparison of the CPM and HEM Models
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–23
The Consumer Processing Model (CPM)
Stage 1: Being exposed to information
Stage 2: Paying attention
Stage 3: Comprehending attended information
Stage 4: Agreeing with comprehended information
Stage 5: Retaining accepted information in memory
Stage 6: Retrieving information from memory
Stage 7: Deciding from alternatives
Stage 8: Acting on the basis of the decision
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–24
CPM Model Stages
Stage 1:
Being Exposed
to information
Stage 2:
Paying Attention
Stage 3:
Comprehending
information
• Is a necessary but insufficient for communication success—truth
effect” of repeated exposure to a message
• Is a function managerial decisions about marcom budget size and
choice of media and vehicles
• Is a deliberate focus on and consideration of a message
• Involves allocating processing capacity in a selective fashion
• Is drawn to messages relevant and of interest to current goals
• Is understanding and creating meaning out of stimuli and symbols
• Involves perceptual encoding (feature analysis and active analysis)
to interpret stimuli
• May result in an idiosyncratic interpretation or miscomprehension
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–25
Figure 5.10
Humorous
Illustration
of Selective
Perception
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5–26
Miscomprehension
Reasons for
Miscomprehension
Misleading or
Unclear Messages
Biased
Preconceptions
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Time Pressures
and Noise
5–27
CPM Model Stages (cont’d)
Stage 4:
Agreeing with
Comprehended
Information
Stages 5 & 6:
Retention and
Search and
Retrieval of Stored
Information
• Does not ensure that the message influences consumers’
behavior
• Depends on credibility of the message
• Depends on compatibility of the information with values
important to the consumer
• Involves the related issues of what consumers remember
(recognize and recall) about marketing stimuli
• Shows how consumers access and retrieve information when in
the process of choosing among product alternatives.
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–28
Elements of Memory
Sensory Receptors
Sensory Stores
(SS)
The marketer’s job is
to provide positively
valued information that
consumers will store
in LTM
Short-Term Memory
(STM)
Long-Term Memory
(LTM)
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–29
Figure 5.11
Consumer’s
Knowledge
Structure
for the
Volkswagen
Beetle
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5–30
Types of Learning
• Strengthening Memory Concept Linkages
 Repeating product claims
 Being creative in conveying a product’s features
 Presenting claims in a more concrete fashion
• Establishing New Linkages
 Marcom can build strong, favorable, and unique
associations between the brand and its features and
benefits
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–31
Figure 5.12
Illustration of an Effort
to Strengthen a Linkage
between a Brand and Its
Benefits
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–32
Search and Retrieval of Information
• Learned Information
 Impacts consumer choice behavior when it is
searched and retrieved
• Retrieval of Stored Information
 Is facilitated when new information is linked with
another well known concept that is easily accessed
• Dual-Coding Theory
 Pictures are represented in memory in both verbal
and visual form
 Words are less likely to have visual representations
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–33
The Hedonic, Experiential Model (HEM)
• The HEM Perspective
 The CPM and HEM models are not mutually
exclusive—consumers can be both rational and selfinvolved in their decision-making processes
• HEM Communications
 Generate images, fantasies, and positive emotions
and feelings about brands that consumers interpret
idiosyncratically
 Emphasize nonverbal content or emotionally
provocative words to connect consumers to brands
© 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
5–34
Figure 5.13
Illustration of an
HEM-Oriented
Advertisement
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5–35