Market positioning
In today’s business world, marketing is one of the fundamentals without which a business company would have significantly fewer possibilities of success in the market. There are several methods for marketers to develop new ideas and advertise new products and services. Market positioning for a company is essential for its wellbeing (Kahn, 2005). It is a factor of strength and profitability. Of course, these are features of a positive, comfortable, market positioning. Its opposite means the company has much to change and reorganize. Through its positioning in the market, the firm can further expand its business activities.
To achieve positive results in market positioning a company has to carefully select the product, products, it will launch in the market. A product launch is something that involves various activities. It begins with the costs of operations and continues with market strategies and customer perceptions (Kahn, 2005). First, we have to take care of market segmentation and select the typology of customers that our product is directed to. Our company is a beverage-related business firm that has identified as a market segment to launch its product a certain social group, category, which is identified as white/Caucasian male, who lives in the NW area of Oregon, aged between 25 and 31 years old. We are not seeking just for anyone with these characteristics but for middle (and upper-middle) income people who earn on average $50,000 or more per year.
A final characteristic of our target customer would be that he frequents Brew Pubs on a certain frequency, at least once a week. But that is also the focus of the two main competitors for our company: the Sierra Nevada and Blue Moon.
The market positioning of Sierra Nevada is quite more favorable than that of our company, Widmer Brothers Brewing Company. If we have to use a perceptual map, we would use the following:
In it, C is the positioning our company stands. B is the position of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. And D is the position of Blue Moon. This map makes it clear that there is a big difference between our company and the competition. Unfortunately, for the moment this difference is in disfavor of Widmer Brother’s Brewing Company. This graph also shows something important regarding the three companies. They have different branding strategies and are sending out different appeals to the consumers. A is the positioning that our company should aim for shortly.
We will talk in detail later on this.
Branding
The three companies have managed to be perceived differently from the consumers. They have tried to differentiate themselves to gain as many customers as they could. Brand differentiation is one of the best strategies and solutions for commodities to avoid fierce competition and stabilize their market share (Aaker, 2004).
Blue Moon, has managed to be perceived as the ‘best friend of individuality’. It has appealed to customers with individuality and quality being the two most recognizable features. It has marketed itself as a ‘solo’ beer, which people would enjoy in private. During the last decade, it has managed to distinguish itself in this respect. The following graph demonstrates their efforts to build a brand that is based on individuality and quality. For the last 4-5 years they embarked on a marketing campaign promoting those two qualities. The data was taken from surveys done by the company itself and publicized on their website.
As we can see, since four years ago, there has been an improvement in customer perception in terms of individuality and quality of this Belgian-White Witbier style beer. Since its launch in North America in 1995, it has now managed to form brand recognition for individuality and quality.
Sierra Nevada is the other main competitor. It has selected a different branding strategy and market approach then Blue Moon. Its brand equity is focused heavily on quality and then on social appeal. Its managers decided they wanted to form a beer that was recognized for its social appeal. Sierra Nevada beer began a marketing strategy with the intention to make it distinguishable in beverage quality. As proclaimed in its website (www.sierranevada.com) this beer wants to be recognized as a product which makes people enjoy their coming together under a high quality beverage; a sort of Coca Cola of beers. From the surveys made on the effects of their branding marketing campaign we have constructed the following graph. It demonstrates the results on customer brand perception of the product foe the last 5 year period.
What the graph shows are that they have had a lot of success in being recognized as a high-quality beer but still have much to do regarding their social appealing. Here is where our company could benefit.
Widmer Brothers launched its Drifter beer in the market with the hope it will become the consuming product of the target group mentioned at the beginning. This beer targets a certain category of people in their social activities (pub frequenting). It is not a ‘lowliness’ beer and ‘solo’ individual. Since it is the start of the product launch we will try to identify in the next part what strategy should the company apply to achieve positive results.
Changes projected for the future
Drifter beer’s current customer perception is incomparable with that of Blue Moon and the Sierra Nevada. But since the product is young, it has all the time to develop and improve. What the company should do now, is to differentiate Drifter and make it attractive to the designed target group of customers (Trout and Rivkin, 1996). To do this, branding should be moved toward social appealing first and quality then. If we move toward quality recognition, we will be in direct conflict with the Sierra Nevada which already has a comfortable position regarding quality. Instead, in the social appeal field, there is still ‘ground to gain’. The advertisement and marketing campaign should aim at transforming Drifter as the social entertainment of the white middle-class guy during his time spent at Drew pubs. The link between the pub and the beer is essential. The pub is the symbol for a certain social group coming together in an area, and the beer will become the social atmosphere symbol within these pubs. This connection of symbolisms will make a strong social appeal to the selected social category (Asker and Erich, 2000). After this first stage of a marketing campaign, the company can move toward reinforcing brand quality recognition.
It will be easier since we will have a customer base on which to implement strategies. People will already have a perception of Drifter as a socially appealing product related to certain pubs.
References
Aaker, D. A. (2004) Brand Portfolio Strategy. New York: Free Press.
Aaker, D. A. & Erich, J. (2000). Brand Leadership. New York: The Free Press.
Kahn, K. B. (2005). The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development. Second Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Trout, J. and Rivkin, S. (1996) The New Positioning: The latest on the world’s #1 business strategy. McGraw Hill, New York.