Brand positioning: the art of positioning a brand

The first step for the success of your brand on the market

After having introduced the topic of branding and re-branding, the time has come to deepen our reasoning and delve into the examination of what is the first step towards the success of a brand. We are talking about brand positioning (or brand positioning), a phase that all companies should face with due care to obtain the desired results. In fact, brand positioning is decisive above all in a market like ours that is "saturated" with products and services. Standing out from the competition becomes a fundamental requirement not so much and not only to sell, but also to obtain wide-ranging benefits ranging from the highest average receipt (the selling price on the market) to the ease of promotion (online and offline) towards the own target audience.

The scenarios are different and would require a separate discussion from time to time. Within the limits of this analysis we will focus on the main cases and see some concrete examples of successful and failed brand positioning. Let's start with the brand positioning of a brand that has known establish itself in no less than in the handmade shoe sector. How did he do? Simple: describing and telling about its uniqueness to the public of potential customers and consequently transmitting different values ​​from those offered up to then by the competition.

LET'S REASON WITH YOUR FEET: A REBEL PROJECT (AND BRAND).

Going against the tide, going against the fashions of the moment, aiming for a fair price for the company and for the customer... since its appearance on the market, the brand "Ragioriamo con i piedi" (known in principle as Astorflex), has decided to focus on one communication and therefore a decidedly “rebel” identity. This small Italian brand of handmade shoes was one of the first to exploit web resources to convey hitherto niche concepts: manufacturing quality, price transparency, and above all the use of special raw materials, such as microfibre in PET derived from recycled plastic or vegetable tanned leather, the true flagship of the brand. Having started with just a few shoe models, Reasoning with our feet has carved out a place on the market despite one extremely fierce and numerous competition, moving from a modest catalog to a respectable assortment of shoes for both men, women and children.

It goes without saying that an example of this kind is easy to understand: a good marketing strategy and products that are already different in themselves have played in favor of this brand, facilitating the positioning operation also thanks to alternative sales channels (from buying groups to flea markets, demonstrating how the web can combine perfectly with everything that is not digital). However, it is not always possible to build such an original brand identity (we will see in the next article what exactly we mean by this term). Sometimes it is therefore necessary to opt for a different branding action, in which the brand and the various products are assigned peculiar attributes, such as to generate a particular interest on the part of the public of potential consumers. One of the many was the case of Netflix, a home cinema service which in just a few years has become an international giant thanks to a clear positioning on the market. 

THE UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF NETFLIX ON THE GLOBAL MARKET

Since 2010 […] Netflix has experienced a rapid increase in popularity, exceeding 2014 million subscribers in 50, more than 35 million of them in the United States. Since January 2016, Netflix has made the streaming service accessible in over 190 countries, reaching 74 million customers in the same month […]. At the end of 2016, Netflix established itself as the leader in the on demand sector having: 93,8 million subscribers [...], 8.3 billion in revenues (+35% per annum) and profits of 188 million (+54%).

These few lines taken from the Wikipedia page dedicated to the Netflix brand reveal the unstoppable rise of a brand that was unknown until a few years ago and is now considered the undisputed leader in the panorama of on-demand video streaming and home cinema services. An obvious success? Not at all: even today Netflix is ​​pursued by far from naïve competition (from Chili to Sky), yet some branding choices have ended up rewarding the Californian public company, consolidating its fame and turnover. These elements are common to those of many other positioning cases and can be summarized in the following points:

  • Logo: Netflix has chosen a logo that certainly does not go unnoticed. If we asked 100 people about the color, 90 would give the correct answer. The red, and the writing in capital letters, leave no doubts: Netflix dictates the law, or at least this is the perception that passes to the subscribed public.
  • Communication: Movies, TV series and much more. Without limits. Watch what you want everywhere. Cancel when you want. Although not a payoff in the strict sense of the term, this slogan present in plain sight on the main site perfectly conveys the idea of ​​a self-confident brand that does not compromise. Style to the nth degree!
  • Strategy: among the strategic choices underlying Netflix's brand positioning, a couple of significant elements emerge: on the one hand, the abandonment of the rental of physical DVDs (a path maintained instead by Block Buster with disastrous results), and on the other, the production of series independent television networks, therefore financed by Netflix itself.    

THE (CONTINUOUS) REBRANDING OF THE BIG IN THE IT SECTOR

So far we have seen a couple of brand positioning case studies with very different dynamics. However, there are also examples of re-positioning which often escape public attention because they interest brands with their own history and identity. We are talking about rebranding, to indicate how the brand undergoes a more or less significant repositioning. This repositioning most often takes the form of a graphic restyling of the logo and payoff (which is added, changed or eliminated), but it can also affect the icons, colors and the coordinated image in general. To better understand what we are talking about, it is sufficient to refer to the many big names in the IT (internet technology) sector. From Google to Microsoft, from Airbnb to Uber, from Apple to Dropbox, there is no active brand in the digital sector  that has not undertaken a partial or total refresh of its image in the course of its existence.

The reasons are quite intuitive: in the consumer's mind, a brand that is always the same is a brand that does not evolve and therefore ages, first of all, compared to a more modern competition. And given that the product is associated by its very nature with the reference brand, it is obvious that the offer is also affected. We will see in the next chapter how it is possible to create an effective brand positioning thanks to the correct planning of the brand identity. If you want to find out how to beat your competition thanks to targeted investments, all you have to do is visit our blog again. And remember, to learn more about marketing techniques, you can download the ebooks for free "Writing for marketing"and "Effective communication”. Just a few clicks: take advantage of it now!

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