LITERATURE REVIEW

Brand Positioning – Thinking About the Customer

American Marketing Association-St. Louis Chapter White Paper #3
by Lon Zimmerman, Zimmerman Marketing Research.(2005)

Companies seeking to successfully position or reposition brands clearly face a number of

challenges.
A prerequisite for successful branding is creating an environment where marketing is both
understood and appreciated. The ways can be, One is by taking internal managers out in the field
on client visits. Another is by conducting focus group sessions with customers and making sure the
groups are observed by management. The challenges can be overcome by Making sure the
organization adequately understands and appreciates marketing, Spend sufficient time upfront
doing the necessary analysis and research, Pre-launch promotion and advertising, Measure the
success of your positioning efforts, Stay focused on the needs of the marketplace.

There can be three instances when it is likely that a brand will be repositioned: 1) when a new
brand manager comes on board and feels he needs to do something to make his mark, 2) when a
brand has reached a plateau, 3) when there is a change in the category.

Given the speed at which products are introduced these days, especially in high tech categories,
there is often a need to do significant pre-launch promotion and advertising to quickly grab that
spot in the customer’s mind that you want to hold.

It is essential to measure the success of positioning efforts. Objective standards need to be agreed
upon in advance and metrics put in place to evaluate the success of the dollars invested.
Management is more likely to fund future marketing efforts when it is known that measurements of
success are utilized.
Thus in this paper we came across the various challenges a company can face for brand positioning
of their products and the repositioning instances.

Evaluating the effectiveness of brand-positioning strategies from a consumer

perspective
Christoph Fuchs
Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark, and Adamantios
Diamantopoulos
Department of Business Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria(1973,revised in 2009)

The purpose of the paper is to explore empirically the overall relative effectiveness of
alternative positioning strategies from a consumer perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – Two studies (within- and between-subjects design) are
conducted aimed at evaluating the positioning success of four distinct positioning strategies
of real brands in terms of consumers’ perceptions of brand favorability, differentiation, and
credibility, while controlling for brand-specific, product category-specific, and socio-
demographic influences.
Findings – The results show that the type of positioning strategy used affects the positioning
success of a brand. More specifically, the study confirms normative arguments about the
overall relative effectiveness of main positioning strategies by revealing that benefit-based
positioning and surrogate (user) positioning generally outperform feature-based positioning
strategies along the three effectiveness dimensions. The findings also demonstrate that no
single strategy outperforms all the others on all dimensions.
Research limitations/implications – The study is limited in terms of the number of
positioning strategies and product categories evaluated. The paper introduces an alternative
approach to measure the effectiveness of positioning strategies of real brands. Moreover, the
results of the paper show empirically that measuring positioning effectiveness must extend
beyond capturing unidimensional brand attitude measures.
Practical implications – The findings should guide brand managers in selecting the most
appropriate positioning strategies for their brands in high-involvement markets such as the
automobile market.The study sheds initial light on the overall relative effectiveness of major
positioning strategies. The study differentiates itself from existing studies by focusing on the
conceptually most prominent positioning strategies, a different dependent variable, and
employing real-life brands and advertisements.

Branding on the Global Stage

how culture impacts global branding and positioning
Author-Jean-Pierre Lacroix, R.G.D., President and Founder of Shikatani Lacroix
white paper | July 2009

When a brand strategy is created, and subsequently, as marketing efforts become more
localized in nature, a brand’s journey towards optimal success is affected by cultural and
socio economic factors along the way. Apart from the usual “business” factors like category
development, competitive and organizational issues, if localized efforts do not consider the
uniqueness of the market, the risk is low brand performance or even worse, complete brand
irrelevance which can be catastrophic to recover from. In this particular study, three
theoretical brand strategies were outlined: functional, social and sensory (three of many
possible factors). These were then tested against the socio economic factors of power
distance, cultural uncertainty and cultural individualism – the three aspects of culture that
have been said to be “related to consumer needs and brand images”.
Power Distance is about how much any culture values the acquisition of power, prestige and
material wealth. It was observed that in cultures where the power distance was high, a brand
could be most successful using strong social types of associations and imagery.
Cultural Uncertainty describes a culture, which is largely motivated by a level of
predictability, and stability and one, which is generally, risk averse. From a branding
perspective, the more this factor played as part of a culture, the more this group could be said
to be more motivated by functional brand imagery.
Cultural Individualism is a definer, which essentially is “all about me”. People are more
about experiences and influences, which enhance personal enjoyment of life.
It is easy to deduce that where markets value a high level of individualism, a brand should be
about enhancing the person through communications appealing to the senses.

If a brand adaptation cannot respect core brand equity, then their can be other options
For many brands, if you cannot change it or adapt it to both satisfy local needs and maintain
brand integrity, the best bet is to acquire locally which many companies do. Companies like
McDonalds have opted to acquire locally to help them achieve their globalization objectives.
Investing in Prêt a Manger, a popular UK sandwich chain (for example) is a huge departure
from McDonald’s corporate association with fast food. In fact this local chain is best known
for its homemade offerings, which is very fundamentally different from the McDonald’s
model on fast food.
There is no right or wrong answer as far as whether branding should be global or local, as
consumers want both. The challenge is in achieving that best mix with selective and focused
market efforts plus the organizational support and structure to make it succeed. But it cannot
stop there. Markets change so local departments need to remain vigilant and responsive in
order to achieve a measure of sustainable success.
Here, We have studied the global implications, the effect of a International brand on local
markets, the acceptance, challenges and brand image.

What Do Restaurant Brands Really Mean?

Michael Richarme, Ph.D. and John Colias, Ph.D. (Revised 2007)

Brands are conceptualized in various literature as bundles of attributes, bundles of benefits, or

even bundles of promises from the producer to the consumer. These bundles can be
challenging for consumers to vocalize, because often the brand meaning is intuitively known
at a subconscious level. That causes a challenge for marketers attempting to describe and
define their own brands, much less strategically position their brands against perceived
competitors.

Brand awareness is a widely utilized metric, particularly in highly fragmented or competitive

industries, such as the restaurant industry (Kardes, et al., 1993). This metric captures all the
brand names that people are able to recall on an unaided basis, and scores them from those
"highest in awareness" to those "lowest in awareness." From the broad list of brands that a
consumer can recall, consumers form a short list that they actually utilize in making purchase
decisions, generally called the consideration set (Roberts, et al., 1997).

So how do restaurant executives position their brands such that when the consideration set is
evoked in a consumer, or when a group discussion generates a "good enough" alternative,
that their brand is selected? To borrow from an old television game show, that is the $64,000
question.

Some people use satisfaction and loyalty measures to give them an indication of how they are
doing. Others use brand awareness scores for the same purpose. Both approaches give some
glimpses into the minds of consumers, but often aren't very satisfying or insightful (Lehmann
and Pan, 1994).

Another approach is to create a perceptual map of consumer choices for a particular vertical
market. For restaurants, it might make sense to have consumers generate an awareness map
of restaurants, regardless of the industry categorizations such as quick serve restaurant
(QSR), full serve restaurant (FSR), fast casual, steakhouse, etcThe next step in the process is
to have the consumers evaluate specific restaurant brands across a set of attributes. This
relates closely to the concept of brand personality. Per Aaker (1997), brand personality can be
defined as "the set of human characteristics associated with a brand." Consumers personify
different brands, so that one brand of restaurant might be viewed as "cool and sophisticated,"
while another brand of restaurant might be viewed as "sedate and boring."
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD JOINTS
-By Izzychunheng (2010)
The objective of this analysis is to find out the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats
of the company.

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

SWOT is important because it is used to highlight where a business or organization is and
where could it be in the future. SWOT analysis can be divided into two categories which
internal and external analysis.
Strengths of fast food chains can be-

• Strong brand name

Weaknesses
• Perceived quality for price
• Long market history and fanatic • Brand name not capitalized on
followers • Small company in regard to
• Employee satisfaction high heavyweights
• 24 hours service • Limited menu

Opportunities
• Expansion via franchising or direct expansion
• Expand supermarket sales

Threats

• Heavy weights are entering the competition (longer service

hours…,)
CONCLUSION
The success of the various fast food joints depends on how well they are able to cope up with
the opportunities and strengths and also how efficiently they can deal with the weaknesses
and threats.
Being a first mover and innovating services may help in competing with the other fast food
chains and positioning the brand in the minds of the customer. Thus, SWOT analysis in the
fast food chains is necessary.

ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS OF KFC

By Michael Rosselee (2009)
KFC is one of prominent brands in the fast food chains. Thus it is necessary to maintain its
customer by constantly scanning the environment and look for innovations.
Thus KFC conducts SWOT analysis regularly. This is key to capitalize it’s key strengths,
overcome or alleviate its major weaknesses, avoid significant threats, and take advantage of
promising advantages.

Strengths and weaknesses represent the firm’s internal capabilities. i.e. operating procedures,
operating costs, human resources and strategic intent involved in producing its core products.
Opportunities and threats originate from outside the organization. i.e. competition and poultry
suppliers in the case of KFC.

STRENGTHS
1. KFC has the strongest brand in the fast food industry. This is pertinent to consumer loyalty
and attracting the right sort of franchisee. This is pivotal to the success of the franchise.
2. The quality of food is a key strength to KFC. The quality is defined by the YUM! and
controlled by the local franchisees. There is a global standard, with regard to the quality of
the KFC meals. In South Africa the poultry producer for KFC is Rainbow chickens. It is a
well establish firm and has considerable funding from Remgro, so continual improvements in
breeding and general rearing techniques are easily afforded and hence the quality of the
chicken supplied to KFC is of superior quality.
3. The KFC recipes allow for quick a processing time, which makes it all the more
convenient and more attractive to prospective clients.
5. Due to the education levels in SA, a traditional franchising strategy is best as there is no
room for an individual manager’s interpretation which could damage the KFC brand.

WEAKNESSES
1. KFC predominantly cooks its chicken in vegetable oil called trans fats. This is an
unhealthy method of cooking. It also uses genetically modified chicken, which is highly
controversial amongst the educated and health conscience. People are more concerned with
healthiness in food and higher quality of their food.
1. Lack of point of scale scanning system.
2. Lack of knowledge about their customers.

OPPORTUNITIES
1. Balanced menu
2. Customer focus
3. Increased delivery service
THREATS
1. Increasing wage rates directly affects the menu prices.
2. Changing customer demands
Hence, though we cannot avoid the wage rates hike as it as an external political factor still we
can gather more data about the regular visitors of the fast food chain and should regularly
cater to their needs. Continuous feedback will also help. These steps will make KFC earn a
bigger market share and help in positioning the product in a better way in the mind of the
customer

ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS OF Mc DONALDS

BY Akash math(2007)

The objective of this study is to have a close look on the strengths, weakness, opportunities
and threats of Mc DONALDS.
>Opportunities
1.People always want high quality at a moderate/low price. They also need fast service in
spotless surroundings. McDonald's, due to its global presence and international practices, can
provide all these at an affordable price.
2. The Eastern countries were not introduced to fast food. Fast food had barely touched many
cultures then. Hence, McDonald's saw fast food as an attractive business in the far eastern
countries.
3. They are in family-oriented business and there was no other chain with similar services in
fast food who were offering services to the entire family in Europe. In fact, McDonald's saw
a great opportunity by way of selling products for children in Europe where children were not
welcomed in restaurants.
4. The taste for Fast food, especially American style, is growing more rapidly in other places
than in US. This is an immense opportunity for expansion for McDonald's outside the US.

>Threats
1. Prejudices: The main issue when entering a new geography is the need to understand the
culture prevalent there. McDonald's had a tough time explaining what a Hamburger means to
a German who felt hamburgers were people from the city of Hamburg. Similarly, in Japan,
Potatoes were used only to make starch. So, McDonald's found it difficult to explain its
products to the locals in both these countries.
2. They maintain the same traditional menu with limited items.
3. Expansion in France was delayed though McDonald's was highly profitable because they
had to revoke their French franchises who failed to meet their cleanliness standards. They
could have easily lost the French market as a result of this move.
4. In the foreign countries, local people were not aware of McDonalds' Brand. As a result,
acceptance in expansion might be difficult.

>strengths
1. They successfully and easily adapt their global restaurants to appeal to the cultural
differences.
2. They have an efficient, assembly line style of food preparation. In addition they have a
systemization and duplication of all their food prep processes in every restaurant.
3. McDonald's takes food safety very seriously. More than 2000 inspections checks are
performed at every stage of the food process
>Weaknesses
1.Their test marketing for pizza failed to yield a substantial product. Leaving them much less
able to compete with fast food pizza chains.
2.High employee turnover in their restaurants leads to more money being spent on training.

So, with the introduction of some cheap food products which can give the pizza food chains a
big competition and can position its better image in the minds of the customer against
dominos or pizza hut.

FAST FOOD WARS : past and now

Jordan Samuel ( 2003)

The fast food world use to be small because you only had two or three places to choose from.
Now you can drive down a main street in any big city and easily have 10 places to choose
from. All of these places are competing for your business, and usually you will go for the best
deal you can get. With most of the companies conquering lunch and dinner, the fight for
breakfast starts. More of these fast food chains are starting to serve you breakfast the main
meal of the day. With each one serving you something different you have a variety to choose
from. How do they get your attention and what makes you choose one over the other?
McDonald's has been around for ages and is usually the first restaurant that comes to mind
when you think fast food. Over the years McDonald's have learned to adapt with the changes
of time. In 1955, McDonald's launched their first drive-thru window. The drive-thru has
turned into a huge success with people needing to catch a bite to eat on the run and don't have
the time to stop and go in to order. After 20 years since 1975, McDonald's decided to start a
new time of the day, breakfast.
Starting with the Egg McMuffin, a sandwich that has everything you need to start your day
out. After it was a huge success they added more to their breakfast line, making it your one
stop shop for any picky eater you may have. The McGriddle was introduced in 2003 which
includes maple syrup infused into pancakes satisfying your maple urge in the morning
without having to sit down and eat it with a knife and fork.
Breakfast accounts for about 30% of the store's $2.5 million in annual sales each year. Since
McDonald's has started the new darker and stronger coffee line for breakfast, sales has
increased 7.5%. With introducing new products every year they continue to be number one in
the United States. Their major competitors are Burger King, Starbuck's, and Wendy's, all of
whom are trying to get their hands on a piece of the breakfast sales.
Similarly KFC too is in this industry from a long time and there is a silent war going between
the two joints as the food items in the menu and the prices are competing to an extent.
Thus the fast food wars have gone way too far than the normal situation and are effectively
competing with some small restaurants.
How people perceive the brand process.
Rob Gelphman , 2004

• From the corporate brand (BMW), to the product brand (BMW M3 Coupe) and down
to the personal brand (car salesman), branding is a critical component to a customer’s
purchasing decision. These days, customer complaints and opinions are online and
viewable through a simple search, on either Google or through social networks. There
is no hiding anymore and transparency and authenticity are the only means to survive
and thrive in this new digital kingdom.
• For the brand, the brand's foundation is from the individual heart and mind, intellect,
understanding the mind constitute the so-called self-examination of objective things,
and conscious or awakened consciousness and perception
• The role and value of the brand is that brand can provide emotional end for people,
sustenance and experience. And this emotional fate in the hands of the people and
experience the sense of space and from the psychological insights and the brand
experience.

Branding and positioning are two different aspects to achive the same objective.
Nicolas Virtsonis , 2007

• The key to a successful marketing campaign is to demonstrat value.

• Brand provides recognition and awareness. Position helps the customer recite its
attributes.

Brand positioning in the B2B online environment

Mark Tutorous, 2006

• positioning is not what is done to the product or brand, it is what is created in the
minds of target customers
• B2B suppliers can use their websites to alter their brand image through
positioning their offerings and brands in the marketplace
• The framework requires measurement, refinement and development to further
determine the nature, relationships and extent of the online brand positioning elements
and their manifestations
Online branding: the case of McDonald’s
Jennifer Rowley,2007

Contribution of the Internet channel to brand building-

• A brand is not a positioning statement.It is a promise made by a company to its
customers and supported by that company
• The role of brands and branding in the new economy that is characterised by
digitisation and globalisation is attracting considerable attention. Eg Mcdonald’s
recent tag line “I’m lovin’ it”

The concept of positioning and the steps for determining and implementing positioning
Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Farrell , 1997

The position of a product is the sum of those attributes normally ascribed to it by the
consumers Its standing, its quality, the type of people who use it, its strengths, its weaknesses,
any other unusual or memorable characteristics it may possess, its price and the value it
represents.
1. Define the segments in a particular market.
2. Decide which segments to target.
3. Understand what the target consumers
Needs and expectations
4. Develop a product (or products) that caters specifically for these needs and expectations.
5. Evaluate the positioning and images
6. Select an image that shows the product values.
7 (promotion)

Brand Positioning and brand equity

Michaeal Wisharth,2004

Create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or
organization.
• The identity of the brand, from the perspective of the consumers, is the foundation of
a good brand-building program.
• Effective brand management that encompasses brand personality is of major
importance in reaching the company goals of satisfaction, loyalty and profitability
• In volatile markets, it can be necessary - even urgent - to reposition an entire
company, rather than just a product line or brand
• Brand power to influence buyers relies on representations and relationships
• Brand equity is the direct relationship between the customer and the brand

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