Positioning

Positioning (marketing)

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In marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand or organization.

Re-positioning involves changing the identity of a product, relative to the identity of competing products, in the collective minds of the target market.

De-positioning involves attempting to change the identity of competing products, relative to the identity of your own product, in the collective minds of the target market.

The original work on Positioning was consumer marketing oriented, and was not as much focused on the question relative to competitive products as much as it was focused on cutting through the ambient "noise" and establishing a moment of real contact with the intended recipient. In the classic example of Avis claiming "No.2, We Try Harder", the point was to say something so shocking (it was by the standards of the day) that it cleared space in your brain and made you forget all about who was #1, and not to make some philosophical point about being "hungry" for business.

The growth of high-tech marketing may have had much to do with the shift in definition towards competitive positioning. An important component of hi-tech marketing in the age of the web’s is positioning in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, which can be accomplished through Search , also known as SEO. This is an especially important component when attempting to improve competitive positioning among a younger demographic, which tends to be web oriented in their shopping and purchasing habits as a result of being highly connected and involved in social media in general.

Definitions

Although there are different definitions of Positioning, probably the most common is: identifying a market niche for a brand, product or service utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (i.e. price, promotion,...