How Global Product Positioning Differs from Brand Positioning?
Clarke Ricks School of Business,
Liberty University
BUSI 690: Policy and Strategy in Global Competition
Dr. Hicks
April 30, 2022
How Global Product Positioning Differs from Brand Positioning?
When looking at product positioning vs. brand positioning, you will find that they have
similar traits, but each has its own goal. For example, product positioning is about what your
potential customer thinks of your product, while brand positioning involves what your target
customer thinks about your brand.
Why is Product Positioning Important?
Product Positioning is the foundation of your product-marketing story. No single product
can meet the needs of all customers across the local and global markets.
So, the advantage of product positioning is to help you do market or behavior
segmentation and, therefore, communicate your product attributes to the specific audience
that your product is designed for.
This audience will find your product appealing because it’s created to meet their needs and
solve a problem they need a solution to.
If you do not accurately position your products, you might address the wrong customer. If,
for instance, you sell a luxury product and don’t position it like that, luxury buyers will struggle
to find your product appealing because there’s no messaging that communicates that it’s a
luxury product.
Similarly, customers below the luxury market line will also not find the product appealing
because they may view it as too expensive. A better approach would be implementing the
product positioning process to differentiate whom the product is made for clearly.
Benefits of Product Positioning
Whether you’re looking to market a different range of products or ones in the same product
class, you’re guaranteed to benefit from product positioning. How? In the following ways:
It allows you to really get to know your product and identify its key benefits
Allows you to get insights into your target audience(s)
Allows you to match your product with the needs of the right audience
Allows you to communicate with the direct intended audience clearly
It helps you win the attention of the right audience
It helps you gain the attention of different audiences
It helps you cope with market changes
It gives you a chance to communicate a newly added feature to an existing product
Allows you to launch a new product to a suitable customer base successfully
Different Types of Strategies of Product Positioning
There are different product positioning strategies that you can choose from, depending on
your goals and marketing objectives. Let’s discuss the common types below.
Quality
Focuses on the quality of the product as the main unique selling point. Highlighting the
quality of the product allows companies to target customers who associate quality with
longevity. Doesn’t “soft, high-quality duck feather duvet inner” sound better than just “duck
feather duvet inner”?
Pricing
This type of positioning involves communicating an attractive price point that you know
your target customers will be willing to pay. If you offer products at a lower price than your
competitors, you use this to position your products. But if your product is expensive, your best
approach would have to be positioning it as a luxury product to appeal to the right target
market: wealthy people who can afford to buy the product.
Variety
When you offer a variety of the same product, you can stand out against competitors by
emphasizing that you offer more options.
Features and Characteristics
Your product may have the best features and characteristics compared to the identical
product from a competitor. The way to position your product, in this case, is to talk about how
these features and characteristics of your product solve a customer’s problem.
Competitor
This strategy allows you to communicate how different your product is and a better
alternative to your competitor’s product. Showcase precisely what sets your product apart from
the rest.
Performance
This type of positioning focuses on how the product functions. Sports and electronic brands
typically use this type of product positioning to establish authority on performance over the
competition. It sends the message that “my product performs better than my competitors,” and
customers will be attracted to this kind of messaging.
Efficiency
This one focuses on how the product helps customers do tedious tasks more efficiently. The
communication here is clear, “this product will make your life easier.” For instance, ecommerce
businesses deal with product information management daily, and it’s often a challenge to
manage manually. But if they get a PIM tool that automates this task, they become more
efficient, and their lives become easier.
Aesthetic
This type emphasizes the product’s appearance, and that’s directly tied to how it makes the
target demographic feel when they own or use a product in this positioning range. A great
example is a fashion product that looks chic, which will appeal to customers who want to look
chic.
Sustainability
Sustainability is in the minds of many customers who care about the environment. Position
your new product or do a product repositioning of an already existing product to emphasize
how sustainable, reusable, and safe for the environment it is.
