Saturday, April 21, 2007

Positioning

Positioning is a matter of perceptions. It is how your product or service is perceived by the marketplace. Effective positioning puts you in the top of mind position among potential customers. For example, the product Nyquil was originally conceived as a daytime cough suppressant. Unfortunately, it made people drowsy. In order to recoup product development costs, the side affect of drowsiness was then transformed into a powerful positioning strategy. Nyquil became "the night time, coughing, sniffling, sneezing so you can rest" medicine. By changing its positioning, Nyquil created and owned the nighttime cold remedy market.


Finding out how consumers perceive a firm's product relative to those of competitors is essential in developing a positioning strategy. Perceptual maps can be used to try to understand consumer perceptions; a perceptual map is a two dimensional representation of the customers’ perceptions of the benefits of competitive products. However, an organization can help customers to better understand the underlying benefits of its products through the effective use of integrated marketing communications, including advertising, public relations, selling and relational behavior.