Marcom Positioning

1. Chapter Five Marcom Positioning

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

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

6. 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.

7. The Use of Signs and Symbols in Marketing 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.

8. 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

9. The Meaning of Meaning Perceptual Field The sum total of a person’s experiences during his or her lifetime.

10. 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

11. 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.

12. Meaning Transfer: From Culture to Object to Consumer The consumer approaches all advertisements as texts to be interpreted.

13. Advertisements Illustrating Contextual Meaning

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

15. 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

16. Outcomes of Proposed Positioning

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Consumer-Based Brand Equity Framework

22. Advertisement Illustrating Both Product and Non-Product Features

23. Benefit Positioning Positioning with respect to brand benefits can be accomplished by appealing to any of three categories of needs. Functional Needs Symbolic Needs Experiential Needs

24. An Appeal to Functional Needs Products that attempt to fulfill the consumer’s consumption-related problems

25. An Appeal to Symbolic Needs Products that potentially fulfill a consumer’s desire for self-enhancement, group membership, affiliation, altruism, and belongingness

26. Positioning Based on Symbolic Needs

27. 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.

28. An Example of Product-Related Positioning

29. 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.

30. Positioning Via Attributes:Non- Product-Related • Usage Imagery

31. “Flame-Broiled” Vs. “Fire-Grilled” “Oil of Olay” to Olay Examples of Repositioning a Brand

32. 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. Implementing Positioning

33. Comparison of the CPM and HEM Models

34. CPM The Consumer Processing Model (CPM)

35. 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

36. CPM The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

37. Stage 2: Paying Attention • Focus on and consider a message to which one has been exposed • Highly selective

38. Stage 2: Paying Attention To attract consumers’ attention and avoid selectivity: • Create messages that truly appeal to their needs for product-relevant information

39. Stage 2: Paying Attention Illustration of an ad likely to encounter selective attention

40. CPM The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

41. Stage 3: Comprehension • Understand and create meaning out of stimuli and symbols • Interpreting stimuli involves perceptual encoding

42. 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

43. Selective Perception: Each individual is likely to perceive images in different ways

44. Miscomprehension • Messages themselves are sometimes misleading or unclear. • Consumers are biased by their own preconceptions and thus “see” what they choose to see • Processing of advertisements often takes place under time pressures and noisy circumstances.

45. CPM The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

46. 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.

47. CPM The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

48. CPM The 8 Stages of Consumer Information Processing

49. 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

50. 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