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Written: 1996

Getting the Basics

The dictionary of marketing calls it STP marketing. Segmenting , Targeting, Positioning. These are seen in Kotlerian marketing theories as sequential processes, each adding to the next, and culminating in the positioning of the brand. Segmenting is to do with breaking up a mass market along meaningful dimensions into relevant and actionable groups. Targeting concerns itself with choosing a group that is reachable, has the required volumes, and / or strategic importance. Positioning finally attempts to attach a permanent meaning and relevance to the product in the mind of the consumer. It tells the consumer what role the brand plays in his or her life. It convinces the consumer to choose the brand over other brands. Subrata Sengupta calls it "Renting mind space". Ries & Trout define it as " ....what you do to the mind of the prospect." Kotler sums it up as "The act of designing the company's offer so that it occupies a distinct and valued space in the target customers' minds."

Brand Positioning is therefore the value delivery mechanism of the brand. It decides what kind of value the brand will deliver, and how. Different positioning for a brand means that the value to the customer is different. When a brand is repositioned, it is clearly trying to redefine its value to the consumer.

There are actually 2 distinct processes involved in the oft-misunderstood concept of positioning. The first is identifying the position - which involves exploring, understanding and mapping the consumers' mind and selecting the space to occupy. The second is achieving the chosen position by engineering the elements of the marketing mix. Better value can be delivered to the consumer by improving both of these processes.

Identifying Position : Understanding the consumer's mindspace

Creating the perceptual map of the consumer is one of the important contributions of research. This is the starting point of a scientific positioning exercise - aimed at adding maximum value to the consumer. The perceptual map not only creates a schematic layout of the market, it also throws light on the important parameters along which the consumer evaluates brands.

There are 3 basic approaches in quantitative research for creating a perceptual map:

1. Multi Dimensional Scaling (MDS) - The respondent is given the set of all possible pairs from the brands in the market, and asked to rate or rank them according to the similarity or dissimilarity within each pair. The MDS uses this to plot a perceptual map. It can also do this through triads insead of pairs. Here the number of brands needs to be small, not more than 10 at most. Also it relies the category being relatively well developed. The interpretation of the axis is left to the researcher, as is the number of axes. When the need is largely exploratory, with a lot of flexibility and imaginative interpretation preferred, then MDS is the tool to use. However, as it leaves a lot for the researcher to decode, it is dangerous in untrained hands.

2. Factor analysis approach : first an inventory of attributes and benefits are drawn up. Then the respondents are asked to rate the brands on each attribute. The results are Factor analysed - into independent factors. The attributes which are similar are grouped into factors. Each brand's performance can be plotted along each factor. There is no problem with axis identification here - the factors are the axes. If the reason for the research is not only to understand the mind of the consumer, but also for diagnostics, the best method is the factor analysis, as it also allows you to simulate what would happen if you changed your product along one or more of the factors. However factor analysis relies on the customer being familiar with the attributes and factors - it is poor at uncovering latent needs. Also, in the areas where its difficult for a consumer to articulate preferences on different dimensions meaningfully - in foods, perfumes etc. factor analysis may not be the best tool to use.

3. Correspondence mapping - the respondents are asked to relate the brands to various attributes. From this a correspondence map is created where the relative distance between brands represents their dissimilarity and the relative proximity between a brand and an attribute indicates the extent to which that attribute is associated with that factor. The axes in this case are not very relevant. Sharma recommends the use of correspondence maps where the number of brands are large and so are the number of attributes and there is a danger of overloading the respondent if the other methods are used." The method, according to Sharma, is not as rigid as factor analysis, but not as dependent on interpretation as MDS.

Qualitative Research can be used as an input to quantitative research. Or it can be stand-alone tool. The marketer must keep in mind which he wants and model the research accordingly.

Of course, if an organisation has enough accumulated experience and a deep understanding of the consumer, so as to know about the key parameters that consumers go by, the occasions of use, the associations with the products, the segments, the price profiles etc, then all of this can be captured by pooling in the market acumen and intuitively creating a perceptual map. This, in fact is the practice at United Distillers India Ltd (UDIL), who are internationally known for brands such as Vat 69, Johnny Walker, Black Dog etc. The two significant axis for the mind-map of the consumer are price (high/low) and traditional/modern. All the attributes and benefits of all types of liquor are first put down on this map - such as "escaping reality" "social acceptance" "fun" "taste" "image". Then these are clustered, so that they create segments. The value of each segment is estimated and simultaneously, the different products are plotted onto the graph - Scotch whiskey, vodka, beer, IMFL, draught and even local brews. This map, interestingly, is called the salad map at UDIL. Also, to identify with each segment, a needs map is created. This is a visual tool, that comprises a collage of all the visual associations of each segment, with liquor. This is done by giving groups of respondents lots of print advertisements oand other visuals - like a collection of magazines, and then asking them to create the collage.

Having created the map - through rigorous quantitative measures or by experience and intuition - is only half the job. Interpreting the map creatively is often as tough. In any perceptual map, one of the first steps should be to identify an ideal point or ideal vector. This represents the most desirable combination of attributes, benefits or factors that currently exist in the consumers mind. The marketer then has a choice of trying to move towards it or consciously avoiding it. For example he may find that the number one brand is too strongly entrenched in the vicinity of the ideal point and may prefer insted to adopt a vacant area near to but distinct from it. Or, if he has the resources, he may decide to redefine the ideal point in this market. Internationally, that is what Xerox did in the copier market or Polaroid, in instant photography. In India, Titan's redefinition of the ideal point in the watch market bears mention, though it was against a relatively inactive competitor.

The marketer and researcher must also realise and interpret the presence of segments in the perceptual map. This would call for a decision to choose between them in defining the core target group, which goes back to the targeting exercise.

Beyond Research. At the end of the day, research is an input - one of many, for the marketer. It is a decision support system. It is not a decision. The marketer's experience and understanding as well as his foresight and vision must come into play. One-off research provides a snapshot, it often misses the trends. The marketer must therefore know how and where to use research and when take decisions that may seem to counter the research findings. The creativity of the organisation comes into play here. Products such as Polaroid's instant photography don't come out of research. Often, what Prahalad and Hammel call white spaces need to be explored. These are untapped areas that can be explored by combining different competencies that exist within the organisation. For example, the cargo handling competence and the understanding of the legalities of goods transfer are being combined effectively by the erstwhile courier companies that are now positioning themselves as logistics solutions providers. UDIL is currently attempting to position its brand Black & White in a manner quite contrary to the core and accepted positioning of scotch whiskeys.

All this research boils down to obtaining a better understanding of the consumer. Whether by perceptual mapping or by usage and attitudes studies. It implies therefore if an organisation can find a way to understand its consumers as well without undertaking formal research, its first objective in the posititioning effort will have been met.

Achieving The Positioning

Once the companies have a good idea of where they want to get, they need to put everything into getting the brand into that space in the mind of the consumer. And this implies using, adroitly and creatively, as many Ps of marketing as the marketer can think of, although at the core of the brand must be a product that delivers strongly on functional benefits. Words such as "Price positioning" are commonly heard. It would be wrong to imagine that price alone can achieve any positioning, without the help of the other elements of the marketing mix. We can at best, therefore, call it Price led positioning , or for that matter distribution led positioning. One of the commonest misconceptions that companies seem to have is that the communication is the position. In fact there are companies which leave the positioning exercise to the advertising agency, and in doing so, probably miss understanding the core of their brand. The goal of every marketer, should ultimate be to define the market to its advantage - redraw the value equations - by better product performance, by better distribution and service and by better positioning. Synergies between the marketing mix elements play an important role in achieving the position, which is synonymous with delivering value to the consumer. To better understand this, consider the following set of 10 positioning platforms which, between them, are able to cover almost all the products and services available today.

· Premium Positioning or status symbol - some brand is sure to occupy this position in almost every category. Whether its Raymond's Microlite in suitings, Lux International in soaps or Bally in shoes, or even Royale in paints. The consumer uses these brands to underline his or her status, power or wealth and a lot of peripheral consumers use it in an aspirational way. The consumer of Black Dog derives value from the fact that he is consuming an exclusive product and this must be strengthened by the entire marketing effort. Take the example of scotch whiskey, which by itself is a premium product category. Within range of scotch whiskeys, Black Dog, from UDIL, is positioned as the most premium, oldest and most expensive whiskey - it is 12 years old (3 years is the minimum for scotch whiskey) and retails at over Rs 1500 in Mumbai. Due to the restrictions on liquor advertising, alternative means of communicating the position needed to be found. UDIL did this by sponsoring occasions with prestige, and involving high powered people and making Black Dog visible in 5 star hotels and premier clubs - through ashtrays, ice buckets etc. Even there, banners or posters are never used - as the positioning also requires to be subtle and understated. Instead, waiters are asked to keep a bottle on the tray while serving the drinks even though they are poured out beforehand. Care is taken to see that there is low visibility of the brand in pubs and nightclubs, though the product might be available there. And though they are sold from the same outlets as any other scotch whiskey, it has been observed that the consumer rarely if ever goes to the outlet himself to purchase it, so it does not create discord in the consumers' mind.

· Value for money - this is another position ubiquitous to all product categories. Vat 69 in the scotch whiskey market, Newport in Jeans, Wheel in detergents. This should not be confused with poor quality. Nor are they just the cheapest brands. They are not discount brands. Simply put, there is little or no exclusivity attached to these brands, and the consumer derives value from the fact that he/she is paying for functionalities and performance rather than snob value or image. Consider Newport Jeans. While the communication harps on the price, it never fails to tag the quality - "Good Jeans for Less". To achieve this kind of positioning, Arvind has focused its distribution - 3,000 outlets currently and heading for 5,000 spread over 120 cities - and no exclusive stores. It is distributed like an FMCG - through 25 C&F agents across the country. The product itself has been kept simple (though Arvind has now extended the Newport Brand) a single cut and 3 colours. At the same time, they take care to maintain quality - 14 1/2 Oz denim is used. The volumes achieved have also helped the brand - Newport was outselling the second biggest brand - Flying Machine, by a factor of almost 6. The important thing about the value for money platform is this: although there are a few brands whose position is based solely on the fact that they are the cheapest brand in the market, this will generate sales volumes but not brand strength for them, unless consumers who can afford more expensive brands are still consuming this brand.

· Friend / family values /warmth - brands that occupy this platform attempt to evoke feelings of warmth, family values and nostalgia. When done well, the consumer can get emotionally attached to the brand. Tisco's "We also make steel" campaign attempted to do just this as does the current campaigns for Sail : "Theres a little bit of Sail in Everybody's life" or the L&T "Integrity" campaign. Parachute and Sundrop have also used this route. Typically, this platform becomes significant for product categories that form a part of the consumer's everyday life. Asian Paints attempts to use this kind of positioning. Their festival of India campaign mark their attempt to associate the brand with special occasions, when people tend to paint their homes. The position stems from the understanding of consumer habits - the trauma of having the house invaded by workmen and the excitement of the new look when it is over. Once the job is complete there is a lot of joy, people change the furniture setting and feel nice about their house. Asian Paints strives to provide to its consumers the feelings of joy and happiness that surrounds festivals, through the brand. In Calcutta, Asian Paints supports this by running competitions during Durga Puja - for the best pandals. Clearly, this would imply building up inventories for the festival season and accelerating the sales activity at the appropriate time. It also calls for a lot of tactical advertising.

· Problem Solver - This is where a very large number of brands operate and indeed, some brands combine this with other value delivery mechanisms. Colgate has, for years now, been the toothpaste that "Stops bad breath. Fights tooth decay". Its pricing has been reasonable enough for it to be endorsed by more people than any other toothpaste in the world. Obviously this has been facilitated by one of the most extensive distribution systems in the world. However, one of the main reasons for the success of Colgate, according to an Executive Vice President of Colgate Palmolive, is "....we have single mindedly concentrated the brand extensions on oral care only .....and when the consumer thinks of oral care, he thinks of Colgate." A variation of the problem solving platform is the Care & Protect platform. Dettol -has been delivering the value of antiseptic protection in India since the 1940's. Dettol products are sold from both general stores and pharmaceutical outlets. The brand has also been fortified by extensions that have used and built on the value of antiseptic protection. The communication of Dettol soap also harps on protection through its "100% bath" line, and the dettol smell makes this more believable. Today, most consumers identify strongly with the green white and black colours of the packaging and we are careful to maintain the look of the brand through the entire range.

· Fun Snack foods, chocolates and softdrinks are usually positioned on the platform of fun - consuming these is associated with friends, parties and good-times. An unusual fun platform is adopted by UDIL's Black & White Scotch Whiskey which targets younger scotch drinkers of both sexes in the age group 25 - 40. Priced at Rs 800 in Mumbai, the brand is prominently displayed at pubs, nightclubs and sponsors "nights" at the better known pubs. At these occasions, the atmosphere is informal, there is no invitation involved, no dress codes, cocktail making competitions are held, and celebrity bartenders like Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre complete the ambience. Black & White as a rule is not promoted at 5 Star Hotels, and Clubs. Even the typeface used in the promotions is informal. The brand consciously targets opinion leaders in the segment - those in leading edge professions like media, theatre, advertising and fashion.

· Trendy / stylish : This platform is good for "badge products" - ones that are consumed in public view. Garments, automobiles, pens etc. The consumer derives image enhancement or makes a personality statement or an impression of being abreast of styles with these brands - say a Parker Pen or a Swatch. Louis Phillipe attempts to create a strong position for itself as a brand that represents Europian styles. In order to do this, Madura Garments starts from the brand name and backs it up with the Louise Philipe stores, the sponsorships of theatres and semi-premium pricing. Flying machine is Arvind Mill's oldest garment brand. It was traditionally sold as a tough rugged pair of jeans that was essentially Indian. for years it was sold through multibrand counters and was the largest selling jeans after Newport, at 5 lakh pairs per year. However, Arvind found that the jeans wearers associate style with international brands and they see exclusive showrooms as a sign that a brand has international style and class. To tackle this, Arvind has withdrawn the brand from all 700 multi-brand outlets and has set up exclusive Flying Machine showrooms, that will drive home the style aspect of the brand.

· Role model/ user imagery - Raymonds is a brand that wanted to occupy the high ground in the suitings market. The factors that drive perceptions in this market are reliability, trust, quality, premiumness. Out of this thinking emerged the "complete man" campaign. This has been the thematic campaign, whereas there are other tactical advertisements as well. To strengthen this position, Raymonds associates iself with events like Sotheby's auction for charity, the Legend of Rama - an outdoor production in Bombay, and fashion shows. Raymonds 200 exclusive showrooms in 90 cities also contribute to its position. The idea is to create an image of a person who the consumer would want to emulate, and associate the usage of the brand strongly with that kind of person. The consumers value source here is largely aspirational. This is strongly communication led, as borne out by brands such as Lux International, though Bausch & Lomb were able to achieve a very strond user imagery appeal by having Tom Cruise wear their product in the motion picture Top Gun. Celebrity endorsements in advertising is a now cliched way of achieving this kind of appeal, but as has happened in the athletic footwear market, with everybody following the same path, it results in the demise of differentiation, which is a basic precept of positioning.

· Anti-establishment / rebel - The shock-in-your-face ads from Chelsea Jeans drives this home, though by no means are they the only ones. Any number of bikes, cycles, and other products targeted at 20-year-olds chooses this route for obvious reasons. The milder, more mature version of this can be found in "for the man who dares to show he cares. This kind of positioning is ideally suited to take advantage of a mass perception change, as the rebels soon become a majority. In today's context, Nivea has effectively made use of the changing perceptions of the role of the male in families and relationships.

· Technology leader / Innovation - This positioning platform is necessarily driven by performance of the product and the company. Consider Intel - at the core of the positioning of the brand is the fact that it has pioneered entire families of new products, and the value its customers get is the reassurance of using the best technology possible for the task at hand. To maintain that, Intel needs to continuously push back the frontiers of its product performance. This means staying abreast of todays trends, such as videoconferencing through PC's - with products like ProShare, launched in December 1996, and the Merced chip, who's performance is yet to be extablished beyond doubt. Intel needs to partner with the best of breed OEMs and software manufacturers - like Compaq and Microsoft. The advent of the home PC has made Intel undertake communication exercises that carry the positioning of Intel into the home. In India, Intel's aim has been to catalyse the market - by getting parents and kids into the store. Clearly, once people start associating computing with Intel, the brand will have rented valuable property in the mind of the consumer, and for a long time to come. Similarly, 3M's customers get the value of knowing that they are using products that are technological breakthroughs, and designed specifically for the task.

· Service Leader - all service brands obviously need to position themselves along dimensions of service delivery. Some strong service delivery platforms are "Satisfaction or money back", "We try harder", "24 hour sevice, 7 days a week". Even products sometimes carry strong service values. Ogilvy, in Ogilvy on Advertising , talks about a Sears and Roebuck hammer that carried a guarantee of replacement if it ever broke. Microland positions itself as a service brand - both internally as well as externally. Microland looks for latent needs that are expressed in some passing remark or in different contexts, and sees great potential in products that can meet these needs. This led to Microland's redefining itself from an enterprise networking partner, to an enterprise partner - with a focus on business benefits. A position based on a product in a fast changing world can be vulnerable to technological upheavals, but one based on value allows the organisation to continually adapt its products and services to the consumers needs, as the consumers definition of value changes.

It would be simplistic to look at these platforms as independent and exclusive. Many brands can and do span more than one platform. For example a brand like Louise Phillipe could straddle both style and premium platforms. To do this effectively, though a brand must choose one as the primary positioning and the rest as supporting ones, else the value delivery becomes unclear to the consumer. The value delivery also gets confused if the marketing mix elements contradict each other. Typically, it is the communication which promises a value that the product does not deliver. Or the consumer does not perceive the product to deliver. The Godrej advertisement for the "fastest cooling airconditioner" will prove to be meaningless if consumers can't perceive differences between cooling powers of air-conditioners in general, and between Godrej and any other brand in particular. Onida's devil can no longer connote meaningful envy if the product is no longer the best in the market in the eyes of the consumer.

The greatest of marketing sins is to take value decisions on behalf of the consumer. To sit in the marketing managers cabin and decide whether the brand is delivering value to the consumer. Also a very suicidal practice. The only way of ascertaining whether the brand is delivering the ordained value - or any value - to the targeted consumer is to ask him or her. This can be done formally or informally, by the company itself or through a research agency, using qualitative or quantitative tools, but it must be done, and on a continuous basis. And the findings of such research must be fed back into the decision making loop so that the marketing effort can be fine tuned or drastically overhauled as the findings may dictate. Britannia found, while researching their test launch in Calcutta in 1992, that Little Hearts was actually being enjoyed by a much wider section of the population just the 12 - 25 age group as was initially targeted by Little Hearts. The advertising, very offbeat and wacky, with dracula and frankenstein, was therefore found by some consumers as meaningless. Once Britannia decided to consciously sell to this wider segment, they had to change the communication, in keeping with the positioning as applicable to a broader set of consumers.

It may turn out that a particular brand delivers a specific value to a specific set of consumers - as with Johnson & Johnsons disposable diapers. But it may also be the case that different segments are able to derive the same benefit - as with Johnsons Baby Oil, which is used by women. Or Horlicks, which is consumed by children as well as elderly people. The strict sequentiality of the STP thus comes into question, and the 3 processes may need to be iterated or conducted simultaneously. HLL practices benefit segmentation, which implies that the segmenting is done on the basis of the value delivery and the positioning. You may also decide to adopt a single platform across segments, but it may necessitate having a range of product offerings. HDFC Bank tries to provide quick and "No-hassles" banking to the young consumer, "Investment options, and recognition" based service to the middle aged consumer and "care" - based service to the elderly consumers. Accordingly, the services are designed and sold.

Two more factors contribute to the continuing success of the positioning exercise. The competence and capability of the organisation is the first. This involves the ability to continuously pioneer or atleast adopt into the product offering the technological innovations that are better able to deliver the same value to the consumer. This calls for dettol to research antiseptic treatment, it calls for Volvo to better understand car safety, and it makes DHL a permanent student of the technology that drives efficiency in logistics. The second factor is the learning capability of the organisation - learning about the consumer and the competitive advantages in the marketplace. And this learning must acrue not only to the CEO and Marketing Manager, but to all parts of the organisation.

If you look at the list of best most admired brands, the one thing that will be very apparent will be that the best brands leave no doubt as to what their position is; in other words, what is the benefit they deliver to the consumer. They will dovetail all efforts within the company - be they in marketing, production or human resources - into one big idea - consumer value. And this, though understood by the best brands, will not be the result of any creative brainstorming or brilliant analysis, but a verdict from the king - the consumer.