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`Flexibility' is an important concept in the business environment. Product `positioning' plays a vital role in achieving a competitive advantage. Marketers cannot have a particular positioning of their products over a period of time. Based upon the changing needs of the prospective customers and also the global competition, marketers have to be flexible enough to adopt changes. Thus, marketers of new brands have to adopt more focused strategy to succeed. The article analyzes how marketers should position their products and how flexible they should be to adopt changes as per the changing needs of the present and prospective customers.
All marketing strategies are built on Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP). A company discovers different needs and groups of customers in the marketplace, targets those needs and groups, and then positions its offering, so that the target market recognizes the company's distinctive offering and image. Positioning is the act of designing the company's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The goal is to place the brand in the minds of the target consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm. The result of positioning is the successful creation of a customer-focused value proposition, a cogent reason why the target market should buy the product (Kotler, Philip and Keller, Kevin Lane, 2006).
Two advertising executives Al Ries and Jack Trout popularized the word `Positioning'. They saw positioning as a creative exercise done with an existing product; positioning starts with a product, a piece of merchandise, a service, a company, an institution, or a person. But positioning is not what one needs to do to a product. Positioning is done to the minds of the prospective customers. That is, position the product in the mind of prospect (Ries, Al and Trout Jack, 1982). There are various positioning strategies that can be pursued. They are by product attributes, benefits, usage occasions, users, against a competitor, away from a competitor and product classes. |
