BRAND POSITIONING
EVOLUTION—Positioning is the last step in the marketing strategy formulation. Marketing strategy begins with identification of market segmentation and later choosing a target for marketing activity. The term ‘position’ in a physical sense is used to refer to or specify the place or location of an object. The marketing battle is not fought for acquiring a geographical unit but to win customers or market share. Retailers or the end users are usually the targets of the marketing battles. In marketing, the soldiers are typically the sales people, and other value creating tools like advertising, sales promotions, demonstrations, product, after sales care, price, reputation etc, are the tools used to fight the marketing battles. Brands are the ultimate fighters used to fight marketing battles. Marketing battles are fought with competitors in the industry who stake claim to or chase the same customers or markets. A marketing battle is fought in the minds of prospects for their purchase preference. When a brand is sold in the mind of the customer, the marketing battle is won. In the marketing context, victory is dictated by superior value delivery. Brands that deliver better value than rivals usually win the customer’s purchase vote.
ADVERTISING PERSUASION— In the early years, marketers relied upon the powers of communication tools like advertising to win customers. The belief that dominated this era was that customers could be sold anything on the basis of persuasive communication. It means that communicating with prospects was more about creativity and less about strategy. Message repetition or bombardment was believed to be the key to drilling information into customer’s brains and thus influencing consumer buying. Advertising came to acquire an important status in the corporate functions. Message repetition is required to communicate but repeated far