Positioning and Repositioning

Positioning is means that to determine a reasonable location in potential customer’s mind. It doesn’t mean that the company should create a new product, something different or services. Instead, positioning is tried to manipulate people’s mind and idea. Positioning is an important strategy in marketing strategy and if the company wants to success they should make their product always attract customers. (globrand. 2010)Customer can only receive limited information and they prefer simple to complex. They are lack of security and they won’t change image of a brand easily. So, positioning is using these characteristics of customer to determine a correct location of a product or brand. Repositioning has totally different meaning with positioning. I think that repositioning is given a new life to the product. It base on original marketing plan, objectives, environment and find out shortcomings.

And find a way to solve these problems. In order word, it is the process of repositioning. Repositioning is the second step of marketing process, and every step in second cycle is tried to complete the first step. (wbn360. 2010)We should notice that there are lots of different between positioning and repositioning, repositioning is not only find out some positioning errors but also find out some reasonable factors, both of these will contribute to repositioning. Why we repositioning a product or services? There are two reasons. First, positioning was wrong at the beginning, and we need to reposition it. The second, positioning was right but the environment which it depended on was change. So we need to reposition it. (globrand. 2010)In my opinion, if competitor public a new product and occupied part of the market. Or the need of customer were change, it will reduce our market share. So we need to reposition it.

Why marketing managers may regard repositioning a product necessary? There are several reasons below. First of all, it can expand the basic concept of the product. Find our future development of the product and what added value customers need, consider about whether the price is acceptable by customers. Second, according to the needs of customers and different purchase motivation, marketing managers can divided these to different types of customer groups. And marketing managers can adjust their positioning and get more market share. Third, according to the needs of customers, marketing managers can reset their objectives and make a new marketing strategy. (emkt. 2003)Fourth, as I said before, marketing managers need to reposition their product probably they were threat by their competitors. Repositioning can help marketing manage analysis their competitors.

Marketing managers should consider their competitor’s technical level, services, market share, directions of development. Base on the analysis, marketing managers can reset their marketing strategy and objective. Marketing managers should improve their quality of product, if their competitors are stronger, they should reposition their product, even transfer their market. (qikan 2008)For example, Puma used want to get all market shares so they not only provide high price shoes but also provide low price shoes. And they want to target all customers market. So many people may think that it’s not fair to pay different money but they wear the same brand’s shoes. Finally, Puma find out the problem and repositioning their brand and solve these problems. (163. 2006)

Reference:

1. Chen Yongcheng. 2010. Positioning is very important. Viewed 2 December. 2010 http://www.globrand.com/2010/507470.shtml
2. Quan Qiuhui. 2010. The relationship between positioning and repositioning. Viewed 3 December. 2010 http://www.wbn360.cn/baosheji/20100915_17612.html
3. Xu Chaohua. 2010. Marketing strategies of repositioning. Viewed 3 December. 2010 http://www.globrand.com/2010/504935.shtml
4. Gao Dingji. 2003. How to repositioning. Viewed 4 December. 2010 http://www.emkt.com.cn/article/112/11212.html
5. Sun Yao. 2008. How many factors we should consider before repositioning. Viewed 5 December. 2010 http://www.qikan.com.cn/Article/xsgl/xsgl200811/xsgl20081127.html 6. 2006. How puma reposositioning its brand. Viewed 6 December. 2010 http://biz.163.com/06/0814/15/2OGDU7I800020QDS.html