138 CHAPTER 4 TARGET GROUPSto offer the biggest free music collection online, ahead of popular streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer.
MySpace has a music catalogue of more than 42 million songs; Spotify has about 15 million songs in the USA. As
MySpace’s Music Player (with Facebook connection) becomes more popular, users might not need to visit the site.
This would enable MySpace to continue to grow even without having direct traffic statistics to show for it.^58 To help
build growth and momentum, MySpace started a new partnership with Panasonic to create MySpace TV (movies,
news, sports and reality programming). This app will offer music video and audio streaming alongside social
features such as online chat and virtual viewing parties.^59
While a million new members is an impressive milestone, MySpace is still on a downward trend overall. Once
the biggest social medium, MySpace sunk to fourth place behind Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with more than
24 million visitors in December 2011. If MySpace can keep adding users, there might be life left yet in what was once
the world’s most popular social network.^60Positioning
Positioning a brand or product is diff erentiating it from competitors in the minds of con-
sumers, e.g. Volvo is a safe car, Duracell batteries last longer, etc. Positioning means taking
into account a complicated set of perceptions, feelings and impressions that a consumer has
about a brand or product. Consumers will position brands in certain associative schemes
even if a company is not actively promoting the competitive advantage of its products.Positioning strategies
Six basic questions should be asked when creating a market position:^61- What position, if any, do we already have in our customer’s or prospect’s mind?
- What position do we want?
- What companies must be outgunned if we are to establish that position?
- Do we have enough marketing budget to occupy and hold that position?
- Do we have the guts to stick with one consistent positioning strategy?
- Does our creative approach match our positioning strategy?
A frequently used visual tool that helps companies position products and brands is ‘mapping’,
based on axes representing the dimensions important to consumers. Every product or brand
is given a score on both dimensions and the map shows which products or brands have the
same characteristics. Figure 4.3 is a map of the salty snacks market. In the eyes of a consumer,
there seems to be a big diff erence between peanuts and cocktail snack nuts. Th e latter are
competing with fantasy snacks (snacks in diff erent shapes). Th ere is no product considered as
natural and diff erent. Th is is a hole in the market, but to be attractive it should be a profi table
hole. Th ere are a number of positioning strategies that a company can use.^62 Th ey are summarised
in Table 4.4.
Positioning by product attributes and benefi ts is based on a unique selling proposition
which makes a company’s brand or product special for the target market. For example, Vidal
Sassoon Wash&Go was the fi rst shampoo (introduced by Procter & Gamble) off ering a
unique combination of shampoo and conditioner. Positioning by price/quality means off ering
the same or better quality at a lower price than competitors. For instance, Virgin Coke off ers
a ‘good’ coke with a brand image comparable with Coca-Cola and Pepsi but at a lower price.
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