Marcom Positioning

Chapter Five

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Chapter Five Objectives

• Introduce the concept and practice of brand positioning

• Explain that positioning involves the creation of meaning and that meaning is a constructive process involving the use of signs and symbols

• Give details about how brand marketers position their brands by drawing meaning from the culturally constructed world.

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Chapter Five Objectives

• Describe how brands are positioned in terms of various types of benefits and attributes.

• Explicate two perspectives that characterize how consumers process information and describe the relevance of each perspective for brand positioning.

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Positioning In Theory: Creating Meaning

• A brand’s positioning represents the key feature, benefit, or image that it stands for in the target audience’s collective mind.

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Positioning Statement

A positioning statement for a brand is the central idea that encapsulates a brand’s meaning and distinctiveness compared to other brands.

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Semiotics

“The study of signs and the analysis of meaning-producing events.”

Meaning is a constructive process that is determined as much by the communicators as by the receivers

of the message.

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Sign • Something physical and

perceivable that signifies something to somebody in some context.

• An example of a sign is the “thumbs-up” gesture, which has vastly different cultural connotations.

The Use of Signs and Symbols in Marketing

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The Meaning of Meaning

Meaning

The perceptions (thoughts) and affective

reactions (feelings) to stimuli evoked within

a person when presented with a sign in a

particular context

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The Meaning of Meaning

Perceptual Field

The sum total of a person’s experiences

during his or her lifetime.

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The Meaning of Meaning

• Communication is effective when signs are common to both the sender’s and the receiver’s fields of experience

• The larger the overlap in their perceptual fields, the greater the likelihood that signs will be decoded by the receiver in the manner intended by the sender

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Meaning Transfer: From Culture to Object to Consumer

Through socialization, people learn cultural values, form beliefs, and become familiar with the physical

manifestations, or artifacts, of these values and beliefs.

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Meaning Transfer: From Culture to Object to Consumer

The consumer approaches all advertisements as texts to be

interpreted.

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Advertisements Illustrating Contextual Meaning

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The consumer infers that this product will help him or her get in shape and maintain a healthy regimen.

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Positioning in Practice: The Nuts and Bolts

• Brand positioning is essential to a successful Marcom program.

• A good positioning statement should: – Reflect a brand’s competitive advantage – Motivate customers to action

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Outcomes of Proposed Positioning

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Loser

Characterizes a proposed positioning where the brand possesses no competitive advantage and the basis for the positioning is not enough to motivate consumers to want the brand.

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Swimming Up the River (SUTR)

• A proposed positioning represents a competitive advantage for a trivial product feature or benefit, and does not give the consumer compelling reasons to want the brand.

• Any effort will be hard work with little progress

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Promote Competitors

• Does not reflect a competitive advantage but does represent an important reason for making brand selection decisions in the product category.

• Any effort would basically serve other brand selection decisions in the same category.

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Winner

• Brand is positioned on a product feature or benefit for which the product has an advantage over competitors and which gives consumers a persuasive reason for trying the brand.

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Consumer-Based Brand Equity Framework

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AdvertisementIllustrating BothProduct and Non-Product Features

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Benefit Positioning

Positioning with respect to brand benefits can be

accomplished by appealing to any of three categories of

needs.

Experiential NeedsSymbolic NeedsFunctional Needs

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An Appeal to Functional

Needs

Products that attempt

to fulfill the consumer’s

consumption-related

problems

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An Appeal to Symbolic Needs

Products that potentially

fulfill a consumer’s

desire for self-enhancement, group

membership, affiliation, altruism,

and belongingness

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Positioning Based on Symbolic

Needs

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Attribute Positioning

A brand can be positioned in terms of a particular attribute or feature, provided that the attribute represents a competitive advantage and can motivate customers to purchase that brand rather than a competitive offering.

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An Example of

Product-Related

Positioning

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Non-Product Related: Usage and User Imagery

• Brands can also be positioned in terms of their unique usage symbolism or with respect to the people who use them.

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Positioning Via Attributes:Non- Product-Related

• Usage Imagery

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Examples of Repositioning a Brand

“Flame-Broiled”

Vs. “Fire-Grilled” “Oil of Olay”

to Olay

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Implementing Positioning

• Consumer Processing Model (CPM): information and choice are seen as a rational, cognitive, systematic and reasoned process.

• Hedonic, Experiential Model (HEM): views consumers’ processing of marcom messages and behavior as driven by emotions in pursuit of fun, fantasies and feeling.

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Comparison of the CPM and HEM Models

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The Consumer Processing Model (CPM)

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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Stage 1: Consumer Information Processing

Exposure to information

• Consumers come in contact with the marketer’s message

• Gaining exposure is a necessary but insufficient for communication success

• “The truth effect”: repeated exposure to a message increases the likelihood that the receiver will believe it to be true.

• A function of key managerial decisions regarding the size of the budget and the choice of media and vehicles

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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Stage 2: Paying Attention

• Focus on and consider a message to which one has been exposed

• Highly selective

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Stage 2: Paying Attention

To attract consumers’ attention and avoid selectivity:

• Create messages that truly appeal to their needs for product-relevant information

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Stage 2: Paying

Attention

Illustration of an ad likely to encounter

selective attention

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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Stage 3: Comprehension

• Understand and create meaning out of stimuli and symbols

• Interpreting stimuli involves perceptual encoding

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Perceptual Encoding

1. Feature analysis:

Initial stage whereby a

receiver examines the

basic features of a

stimulus

2. Active synthesis:

Beyond examining physical features, the

context or situation plays a major role in

what meaning is acquired

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Selective Perception: Each individual islikely to perceive

images in different ways

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Miscomprehension

1. Messages themselves are sometimes misleading or unclear.

2. Consumers are biased by their own preconceptions and thus “see” what they choose to see

3. Processing of advertisements often takes place under time pressures and noisy circumstances.

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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Stage 4: Agreement

• Comprehension by itself does not ensure that the message influences consumers’ behavior

• Agreement depends on– whether the message is credible– whether the information is compatible with the

values that are important to the consumer.

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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Retention and Search/Retrieval of Stored Information

These two information processing stages,

retention and information search and

retrieval, both involve memory factors

related to consumer choice

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Elements of Memory

Memory

Memory involves the related issues of what

consumers remember about marketing

stimuli and how they access and retrieve

information when making consumption

choices

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Elements of Memory• Sensory stores(SS):

– Information is rapidly lost unless attention is allocated to the stimulus

• Short-Term Memory(STM):– Limited processing capacity– Information not thought about or rehearsed will be

lost in 30 seconds or less

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Elements of Memory• Long-Term Memory (LTM):

– A virtual storehouse of unlimited information– Information is organized into coherent and

associated cognitive units called schemata, memory organization packets, or knowledge structures

– The marketer’s job is to provide positively valued information that consumers will store in LTM

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A Consumer’s Knowledge Structure for the VW Beetle

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Two Types of Learning

Strengthening of linkages among specific memory concepts

– repeating claims, presenting them in a more concrete fashion and being creative in conveying a product’s features

• Establishing entirely new linkages

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An Effort to Strengthen a Brand Linkage Using a Concrete

Illustration

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• Information that is learned and stored in memory only impacts consumer choice behavior when it is searched and retrieved

• Retrieval is facilitated when new information is linked with another concept that is well known and easily accessed

• Dual-Coding Theory: Pictures are represented in memory in verbal as well as visual form, whereas words are less likely to have visual representations.

Search and Retrieval of Information

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The 8 Stages of ConsumerInformation Processing

CPMCPMCPMCPM

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The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

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A CPM Wrap-Up

• The rational consumer processing model (CPM) and the hedonic, experiential model (HEM) are not mutually exclusive.

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The HEM perspective

• People often consume products for the fun of it or in the pursuit of amusement, fantasies, or sensory simulation

• Products are subjective symbols that precipitate feelings and promise fun and the possible realization of fantasies

• The communication of HEM-relevant products emphasizes nonverbal content or emotionally provocative words and is intended to generate images, fantasies, and positive emotions and feelings

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CPM vs. HEM

An advertisement

exemplifying

the HEM approach