Tagline create an Impression. Positioning create an Image.

Any one who has been a student of Marketing or been a Marketer will for sure know about this widely used word in the world of Marketing called as Positioning. When I was in the first semester of my Course of Marketing few years back, I was asked to do a research on POSITIONING and present it the next day to whole of the class. That time the word was new and I knew very little that this word will become so important in my life as it is to the ever growing subject of Marketing.

POSITIONING – as the name says it all, is the process of creating an image for your product/service in the eyes of your customer. Its more so to do with the minds of the customer but the windows being the eyes and ears. Now, the question is that “How do one create an image for the product?”. It could be by several means. You may position your brand or company as a good consumer service provider, you may position it as a better quality product, may position as a product with great after service. There are lot of such ways in which one can position their product. All this things about Positioning is known by almost every Marketing lover. But what I want to convey today through this post of mine is different. I am not going to talk to you what you can read on Wikipedia, I am going to talk to you about something different. And when I say something different, I don’t mean that I have propound the theory or something but its out of something I read from different Sources and clubbed together. 

Let me tell you something similar between Product/Brand and Person. Every person is a mixture of characteristics. Being known for one characteristic makes them different. So is the case with Products/Brands. Brands have several characteristic but what makes them unique is one single characteristic for which they are known and that’s where positioning comes into play. For example, MC Donald’s as a restaurant have several characteristics which can be felt like Good Taste, Customer Service, Familiar Ambiance etc but it positions it is positioned in the mind of people as quality food for low Prize. Low prize is the known characteristic of MC Donald’s and that is their positioning trump card. Many young students and even marketers gets confused and think that the tag line which goes with the brand talks about their positioning which is not completely true. Nike talks about “JUST DO IT”, what does it position? Nothing in fact. That punch line is to penetrate anxiety amongst its customer at the selling point but it doesn’t create an image. Positioning in real terms talks about Differentiating your brand from your competitors. You may differentiate on the basis of different parameters. For Example:

• Differentiating on the basis of how its made? (Ex: Dairy Milk Borunville, made by finest cocoa)
• Differentiating by being first in the category. (Ex: Sensodyne tooth paste, Mahindra Reva)
• Differentiating by being Latest (Apple I phones)
• Differentiating by being a Leader ( Boeing for example)

Something which made me to think about positioning since yesterday was a newspaper article which talked about “Pepsi new campaign to target at Young India”. The title sounded good so did the thought behind it. But when I read it I was equally shocked reading that Pepsi has changed its tag line to “Oh Yes Abhi”. I was not shocked because of the new tag line (perhaps it was amazing) but was baffled because the executives of company said that this was their new positioning strategy. How can slogans/tag lines be taken as a part of Positioning. Tag lines give and impression, Positioning create Image. Its high time for Marketers to head back to School.

Hope you all liked the blog today. 

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari,

Email: rohitsdiaries@gmail.com