Volodarskyy A.V., Grigorieva V.V.

Supervisor Yourieva T.V.

Donetsk National University of Economic and Trade

Named after M.I. Tugan – Baranovskiy, Ukraine

THE POWER OF BRAND REPOSITIONING: A FOUR-PHASED PROCESS

So many brands and companies are constantly reinvigorating their businesses and positioning them for growth. There is a constant need to innovate, reinvigorate, update, recalibrate, or just simply fend off the competition in an effort to better explain "why buy me."

To move forward, companies and brands need to first take a look at their current brand positioning. But for a moment, even a brief moment, it would make sense to go back to the brand drawing board to answer the question, Just what is brand positioning anyway?

Brand positioning creates a specific place in the market for your brand and product offerings. It reaches a certain type of consumer or customer and delivers benefits that meet the needs of several key target groups and users.

The actual approach of a company or brand's positioning in the marketplace depends on how it communicates the benefits and product attributes to consumers and users. As a result, the brand positioning of a company and/or product seeks to further distance itself from competitors based on a host of items, but most notably five key issues: Price, Quality, Product Attributes, Distribution, and Usage Occasions

As companies and brands today look to brand repositioning, they first have to ask what the reasons are for repositioning the brand. They can include declining sales, loss of consumer/user base, stagnant product benefits, or the competition, including such issues as increased technology and new features.

What's next after identifying the reasons for pursuing a brand repositioning?

A four-phased brand repositioning approach will help guide you through the process and allow your company and brand group to best calibrate based on timing, budget, and resources to get the job done.

Phase I. Determining the Current Status of the Brand

The purpose of this phase is to understand the company and brand, including exploring key issues, opportunities, and challenges. The reason is to obtain a clear snapshot of the company and brand in present terms, which will offer a clear insight to opportunity identification and assessment.

Phase II. What Does the Brand Stand for Today?

We now need to understand how consumers feel about your company and brand today. In consumer packaged goods (CPG), this might mean talking to kids and moms, as well as other user groups, to determine what your company and brand stand for.

Obtaining a clear insight to the way consumers feel and relate to your company and brand will provide the starting point of the repositioning work.

Phase III. Developing the Brand Positioning Platforms

Now that we have a good and solid understanding of where the company, business, and brand sit within the overall marketplace, as well as a good understanding of its value to consumers, the next step is to find out how far to grow, expand, and stretch the brand.

Phase IV. Refining the Brand Positioning and Management Presentation

Now we have a great start, a new thinking, and (most important) the beginnings of the new brand positioning for your company, business, and brand. The purpose now is to review and refine the new brand positioning and communicate to all function departments in order to align efforts.

The main reason is that it is important that everyone on the brand team and all function areas understand, buy in, and support the new brand positioning. Essentially, this will become the umbrella strategy for the brand group dictating marketing programs and tactics.

The final output for Phase IV is the production of a "Brandscape." This includes a visual imagery and musical score combined to bring the new brand positioning to life. It can be shared with the entire brand group and brand support groups to communicate new brand positioning and is a core way of communicating the new brand positioning to anyone in the company or anyone connected to the brand group.

The reasoning is that the "Brandscape" could be utilized by all future brand departments as "Brand Communication Guidelines," including packaging, marketing, sales, communications, etc. The overall purpose is to ensure consistent communication of the brand equity across any medium and by any partner.