Brand Positioning

Brand positioning is the designing of a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinct place in the mind of the target customers (Kotler & Keller, 2015). Brand positioning is the sum of all the marketing activities that position the brand in the target customers’ minds relative to the competition. Positioning does not create something new or different, but rather manipulates the mindset (Ries & Trout, 2001).

Positioning is a crucial stage in a brand management strategy. A good brand positioning strategy helps in the development of new products, communication, market expansion, pricing, and the selection of the distribution channels (Fayvichenko, 2018). Brand positioning is a process of creating the brand’s own image, values, positive associations, and distinctive properties in the customers’ minds in order to create a sustainable brand image and ensure consumers’ attachment to that brand (Fayvichenko, 2016). Today, brand positioning is perceived as a process that begins with the design of a trademark position; however, it is “difficult to specify the essence of positioning when its ultimate goal is not clearly understood” (Fayvichenko, 2018, p. 245). To understand the essence of brand positioning, it is crucial to determine the ideal position of the brand. A clear representation of the ideal position of a brand is a “prerequisite for researching positioning as a target process and developing a system for evaluating its effectiveness” (p. 245).

Ideally, a brand will be positioned so that the customer has positive associations with a brand, is convinced of its unique advantages over other brands, and considers the brand to be of high value or a necessity. This brand-supporting customer is convinced that people who buy other brands are making the wrong choice, considers it a duty to recommend this brand to other consumers, and feels a spiritual unity with consumers who have chosen this brand (Kendukhov, 2008).

Accordingly, Kendukhov (2008) perceives brand positioning as a process of managing the perception of a brand by a customer. The purpose of this process is “persuasion of the consumer in the unique advantages of this trademark over other brands; formation of the consumer’s exclusive affiliates with this trademark; formation of the consumer’s sense of the indispensability and vital necessity of the brand; formation of fanatical devotion to the brand; raising a sense of duty to recommend this brand to other consumers; forming a sense of spiritual unity with consumers who chose this brand; forming a belief in the consumer that other consumers who buy goods under other brands make the wrong choice” (Fayvichenko, 2018, p. 246).