Brand positioning

Positioning may be defined as the act of placing the product in the mind of the prospect. Brand positioning refers as the act of designing the branding element resides in the mind of the consumer.

It is the point where the relationship between a brand and consumers become apparent. Positioning is competition-oriented: it specifies the best way to attack competitor’s market share. Brand positioning involves the placement of a brand and all its associations (including characteristics, attributes, personality, and image) in a distinct in the mind of the consumer.

Brand positioning is based on one fundamental principle: all choices are comparative. Positioning is competitive when it comes to brands, consumers make a choice, but with products they make comparisons.

The importance of string brand positioning cannot be underestimated, An organization’s brand positioning is the major way in which it can gain a competitive advantage over rivals and detract criticism, and a definitive identify can provide internal benefits such as the ability to attract quality personnel and breed employee motivation.

A successful positioning requires a strong positive perception from the consumers. For this to happen, the brands positioning should be unique in a way that is different from others.
Brand positioning

Multiproduct firm

A multiproduct firm is a firm that deals, by definition, with more than one output market, in one or more time periods. This leads, naturally, to a richer set of market –based arrangement.

Multiproduct firms must take strategic decisions at the corporate, business, marketing and sales levels. Business strategy decisions determine how each business unit plans to compete effectively within its industry.

Diversification may deliver a multiproduct company some advantages compared to specialists. For example, a conglomerate may cross-subsidies some activities at the expense of other activities.

Mutual forbearance indicates that multiproduct firms do recognized that their own products have to compete with other multiproduct firms on several markets. When they see this is the case, they may be inclined to compete less severely with other multiproduct firms and some form of oligopoly may rise.

Products in the multiproduct firm are often interrelated. Some products may be purchased by a common set of customer: alternatively, other products may share common production or other resources (e.g., these products may be sold through a common sales force).
Multiproduct firm

Competition: the factor systematically influence predictability of future

The greater the competition, the more difficult it is to forecast since by their action competitors can use the forecast to change the course of future events, thus invalidating the forecasts.

Attempts to foretell the future are as old as mankind. In competitive marketing, however, such attempts are particularly significant because they can influence those cost and price decisions resulting from the experience curve. In turn, they may impact the company strategy.

The forecast necessary must predict market sales potential. This prediction is based not only in general economic conditions but also on the interplay of total competitive activity – which often cause an explosion of the total market before deciding the individual strengths and weakness of the main competitors in the market place.

Increasing the degree of competition in industry then becomes an ideal or a goal to be aimed for.

In the 1950s, Lipsey and Lancaster proved that greater competition might lead to a loss of welfare in the economy if at least one industry in the economy was not perfectly competitive.

This ‘theory of the second best’ rebutted the general assumption prevalent at the time that greater competition was always good whilst greater monopoly was always bad.
Competition: the factor systematically influence predictability of future

Relationship and Networks

Relationship and Networks
Transaction marketing is part of a larger idea, called relationship marketing. Smart marketers try to build up long term, trusting, “win-win” relationships with valued customers, distributors, dealers and suppliers. That is accomplished by promising and delivering high quality, good service, and fair prices to the other parties over time. It is accomplished by building strong economic, technical, and social ties with the other parties. Relationship marketing cuts down on transaction costs and time: in the best case, transaction move from being negotiated each time to being routinized.

The ultimate outcome of relationship marketing is the building of a unique company asset called a marketing network. A marketing network consists of the company and its suppliers, distributors, and customers, with which it has built solid, dependable business relationships. Increasingly, competition is not between companies but rather between whole networks, with the prize going to the company that has built the better network. The operating principle is simple: Build a good network of relationships with key stakeholders, and profits will follow.
Relationship and Networks