Marketing textbook, chapter 6

Prof Dr Hans-Willi Schroiff (mindchange), who headed all market research activities at Henkel AG & Co. KGaA in Düsseldorf, will present his positioning approach of „Consistent Backboning“ in a lecture.

Positioning decisions are one of the most important foundations of a successful brand policy. The aim of positioning is to differentiate a brand from competing brands in order to achieve a lasting and profitable unique position in the market. The aim of positioning is to make a brand so attractive that it is favoured by the target group over competitor brands. Independent associations must therefore be established in the minds of consumers in order to prevent interchangeability with competing products. In recent years, numerous positioning approaches based on motivational and neuropsychological findings have become established in marketing practice. These establish a causal connection between human needs or motives as the „drivers“ of purchasing behaviour and the design tools used by companies, which appeal to specific motives as sensory-perceptible stimuli (codes) and thus increase the (psychological) reward value of a brand for the corresponding target group, without this brand having to have objective, functional advantages over the competition. The advantage of these positioning approaches is that clear guidelines can be derived for product and communication design.

Schroiff describes the basic idea behind his positioning approach as follows: „Brands are not mere products - in addition to their functional benefits, they primarily have an emotional value for the buyer and often also a self-expressive function. Both must not only be developed and clearly defined as part of an ‘emotional brand positioning‘, but also clearly and implicitly implemented as part of a communication strategy. The “coding' of the positioning at all levels of the realisation of a brand (product/ packaging/ logo/ TV/ online/ PR etc.) must be coherent in itself and consistent across the means of communication." He supplements his comments on the theoretical background with numerous practical examples from different markets.

Sources:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVbTaaKDiog (as at 27 June 2022).