What's up brand builder Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn what competitive positioning is with top brand examples and types so you can see
how leading brands use strategy to influence their audience with competitive communication
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the term competitive positioning sounds like an intimidating business term to describe a complex
topic and to add to the apparent complexity you'll often hear the term used interchangeably with
a number of equally complex sounding terms such as positioning strategy differentiation strategy
or competitive differentiation but semantics aside these are all more or less the same topic
which is not that complicated at all and once you understand it then you can define
a positioning strategy for your brand to give your brand a competitive edge and to maneuver
into a position of strength but the reality is competitive positioning more often than not
is overlooked or completely avoided by many entrepreneurs business leaders
and even professional branded builders as well it is the cornerstone of brand strategy though
the strategy of a brand is still a new concept to some with many business leaders going for
the easy and more cost effective route which is to develop a visual brand without considering
a strategy but as is often the case there are consequences to taking shortcuts and
when it comes to branding without a competitive positioning strategy you just have a brand without
a compelling reason for the audience to choose it now in his time philip cutler was defined as
the father of modern marketing and he defines competitive positioning as the act of designing
the companies offering an image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market
now if we were to define it in a little more conversational language then
your competitive position is the defining reason that your customers choose your brand or your
competitors so what's the difference between competitive positioning and competitor positioning
well these two are often confused competitive positioning relates to the
competitive edge of your brand while competitor positioning relates to the competitive edge
of the competition so before defining your competitive position in the market it is important
that you understand who else is playing in the market and what their position is for example if
car brand a has developed a reputation as the most economical in a category then car brand b rather
than competing on that decision-making factor might position themselves as the most reliable
so before defining an effective competitive positioning strategy you have to really understand
who the competitors are in the market and exactly what they're doing with their own strategy so what
is a positioning map well this is also known as a perceptual map a positioning matrix a perceptual
matrix these are all really the same terms used interchangeably they're all referring to
this perceptual map or this competitive positional map and it's simply a tool that allows brand
strategists to compare decision-making factors and visualize the competitive landscape the comparison
allows for two decision-making variables to be considered with brands within the category so
you'll have a look at the decision-making factors within a certain category and then you would plot
the brands based on their reputation on that map so for example to visualize the economy family
car market we might use the positional map to consider fuel economy and reliability variables
then you would plot the brands on that map based on the reputation in the market now the positional
map is a tool that's been around for many decades and although it's not an exact science it is a
great way to visualize the market to see where your competitors are playing and to identify gaps
and opportunities now when it comes to competitive positioning there are many different approaches
that a brand can use to position themselves in the market and to provide their audience with
a compelling reason to choose them over their competitors but the key is in understanding
the buying decision factors that your audience places a high value on and creating a perfect
combination to appeal to them so here are some examples of competitive positioning approaches
against brand positioning now this approach uses another brand another category or another audience
as a reference point of their difference so this strategy essentially points the finger at their
opposite and says we're the opposite of these guys whether that's a brand or a group of people now it
is a bold strategy but it's a very effective one especially if the audience has a beef
with the point of reference for example the dollar shave club indirectly used gillette's expensive
feature heavy razors as a point of focus and they highlighted the pain points of the audience
and then they offered them an alternative the next example is experience positioning
now this approach puts a focus on the entire end-to-end experience of the brand rather than a
single focal point or a single feature throughout any experience there may be many different pain
points that hamper the overall experience of the audience and experience positioning
tends to iron out these pain points and then communicates their absence to the whole market
and in doing that they tell the market look our end-to-end experience is our unique point
of difference jetblue was one of the first airlines to disrupt air travel in the u.s
coming into a market where competitive fares and comfortable travel were mutually exclusive
jetblue placed the focus on the entire experience so competitive affairs extensive
in-flight entertainment comfortable leather seating and additional leg room they place
the focus on the entire end-to-end experience and that's what they communicated to the market
now today with all of the digital advantages that we have it's pretty easy to start
a business but it's not enough to simply provide a solution to a problem every single business in
the world has some kind of solution to some kind of problem and you know that's not enough anymore
taking a competitive position forces you to look at the competitive landscape from the shoes of
your audience and if you spend enough time in the shoes of your audience and ask the right questions
you're far more likely to find a competitive position and ultimately an edge of your
competition now if you're ready to define a competitive position for your brand or for a
client's brand and you're looking for inspiration for an approach to that position then this video
will help you out until next time brand like a master and I'll see you in the next video