The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Depends on the fit

between the intended

and perceived

positioning refine the

brand according to:

Understand the needs

of different segments

of the market

Identify the most

attractive segment

Develop the brand

to ‘own’ a functional

benefit amongst

the target

Evaluate which

functional benefit the

target market associates

with the brand

Brand building 377

large amounts of data and choice. For example, it
has been estimated that the weekend edition of a
quality newspaper has more information than
someone would have been exposed to in the
seventeenth century. In a grocery superstore the
customer is faced with over 20 000 lines. To cope
with this notable quantity of data, people’s
perceptual processes take over. In effect, these
raise ‘barriers’ protecting the mind against
accepting just any type of data, and perceptual
vigilance then focuses attention on particular
data which are selectively comprehended and
retained in the memory. One of the implications
of the perceptual process is that customers may
interpret a brand differently from that intended
by the organization. For this reason, some
managers interpret a brand as a device that
enables them to establish a key functional
association in the customer’s mind.
There are several characteristics of a pow-
erful brand positioning strategy. First, it should
be centred ideally around one functional attrib-
ute, or if necessary a couple, since the more
attributes included the more difficult it is to get
these registered in customers’ minds. Second, it

should be recognized, as Ries and Trout (1986)

stressed, that positioning is not what is done to

a brand, but rather what results in the custom-

er’s mind. In other words, it is myopic to just

focus on brand development. Rather, there

should be a balanced perspective, evaluating

what the customer registers about the brand,

then fine-tuning the brand until there is better

alignment between the intended positioning

and the resultant positioning, as shown in

Figure 15.2.

Third, the brand positioning should focus

on functional benefits valued by customers,

rather than those valued by managers. It is too

easy to focus on features which have more to

do with reflecting the organization’s com-

petencies, rather than taking time to involve the

customer in the development process.

Brand as personality

With advancing technology and sufficient

investment, competitors can emulate and sur-

pass the functional advantage of a leading

brand. One way to sustain a brand’s unique-

ness is through enrobing it with emotional

values, which users sometimes value beyond

the brand’s functional utility. Customers rarely

undertake a thorough review of a brand to

identify its emotional values, as can be appre-

ciated from the early discussion about percep-

tual processes. By using the metaphor of the

brand as a personality, manifest sometimes

through a celebrity in brand advertisements,

customers find it much easier to appreciate the

emotional values of the brand.

A brand’s emotional values are also

inferred from its design and packaging, along

with other marketer-controlled clues such as

pricing and the type of outlet selling the brand.

However, it should be realized that, partic-

ularly for conspicuously consumed brands,

people form impressions according to the type

of people using the brand and this is less easy

for the marketer to control. There are some

examples of successfully capitalizing on the

people consuming a brand, for example the

Figure 15.2 A balanced perspective on brand
positioning