BRAND DIFFERENTIATION AND POSITIONING FOR MAXIMUM COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL
BRAND DIFFERENTIATION AND POSITIONING FOR MAXIMUM COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Branding has been used for ages to differentiate the goods of one producer from those of another. To businesses, brands are extremely valuable pieces of legal property that may influence customer behaviour, be purchased and sold, and provide the owner with the assurance of long-term revenue. Well-known brands make purchasing easier.
Brand promotion benefits both branders and customers. A solid brand saves marketers time and effort in selling, and in some cases, a company’s brand name is the only part in its marketing mix that a competitor cannot replicate.
Good brands can also help to improve the company’s image by speeding up the acceptance of new items promoted under the same name. Thus, branding can be viewed as an effective technique of gaining a competitive advantage.
Beyond selecting which market categories to target, the company must also decide on a value proposition, which is how it will create differentiated value for targeted segments and what positions it wishes to hold in those segments.
Companies must pursue appropriate differentiation and positioning, with each company and its product representing a separate big concept in the minds of the target market.
Given the numerous brands accessible in the market, a corporation must carefully analyse both the strengths and weaknesses of competitors when establishing marketing strategy; this will aid in the product positioning process.
The differentiation and positioning task includes three steps: Identifying a set of potential differentiations that produce competitive advantage, selecting the appropriate competitive advantages, and developing an overall positioning plan.
In essence, product positioning broadens market segmentation by identifying the market target that management expects the firm to enter. It identifies the segments on which the firm wants to concentrate its marketing efforts; these are the areas in which the firm is most likely to have a competitive edge.
Consumers are inundated with information about products and services; to make the purchasing process easier, they organise products, services, and companies into categories and “position” them in their brains.
However, marketers do not want to leave their product’s position to chance; instead, they must plan positions that will provide their products the most advantage in certain target markets, as well as marketing tactics to achieve these planned positions.
The key to excellent performance is gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage. Firms can obtain a competitive edge by differentiating their product offering to provide higher consumer value, or by focusing on the lowest delivered cost.
When these two sources of competitive advantage are joined with a competitive scope of activity (wide or narrow), four generic strategies emerge: differentiation cost leadership, differentiation, and cost focus.
Differentiation strategy entails selecting one or more decision criteria that are employed by a large number of purchasers in a certain industry. The firm then presents itself in a unique way to match these objectives. Differentiation provides clients a reason to choose one product over another.
To develop a differentiated position, a company must first analyse the nature and location of potential sources of competitive advantage. The nature of these sources are the superior skills- distinctive capabilities of key personnel that set them apart from the personnel of competing firms, and the superior resources of a firm- tangible requirements for advantages that enable a firm to exercise its skills,
it includes the number of sales people in the market, expenditure on advertising and sales promotion, distribution coverage, expenditure on research and development, financial resources, brand equity,
These abilities and resources are transformed into a differentiated advantage when the client feels that the firm provides more value than the competitors.
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic