Consumer Behavior:
Brand positioning is a terms used to refer to reasons by ‘target consumers’ to purchase particular brands over others. It ensures that various brand activities have common aims and that they are delivered, directed and guided by the brand’s benefits and reasons to buy (Cayla & Arnould, 2008). In ‘Salty Snacks’, brand positioning can be used as a focus on all contact points with a given consumer. The successful approaches can be summarized in four dimensions. Identify and communicate the look of the labels to satisfy the needs of the consumer. The second is to personify the characters to symbols that the market can easily associate with. The third is to create new generics to differentiate special and big cantaloupes. The fourth is to establish the suitability of the brand’s name. At times, the original name does not bring out the desired effect as intended (Kates & Goh, 2003).
The most popular product type of ‘Salty Snacks’ is the Potato which sells in four distinct brands namely 'BB Standard, 'BB Murphys, 'Eta O'Ryans and Kettle fries. The various errors in brand positioning include under positioning which is a scenario where there are unclear and blurred ideas of the brand by the customers. Over positioning is a scenario where the customers have limited awareness of the brand (Holt, Quelch & Taylor, 2004). Further, confused positioning is a marketing scenario where there is a confused brand opinion. Relationship between average duplication and brand penetration is influenced by factors such as association, familiarity, awareness, reliability and longevity. Double Positioning refers to a scenario where customers out rightly reject a brand claims. Based on this information, the dimensions that face scrutiny include high price against low price, basic quality against high quality, low volume against high volume, necessity against luxury, light against heavy, simple against complex, low-tech against high-tech and young against old.
Under the product type Extruded, there are brands such as 'BB Twisties, 'Eta Munchos, 'BB Biguns and Burger Rings. The principal aspects that ‘Salty Snacks’ needs to put into consideration in developing a brand positioning strategy include the brand’s attributes in terms of the amount of value that each brand will deliver through the specified benefits and features to its consumers. The second elements of influence are consumer expectations which concentrate on the consumers’ expectation in terms of receiving value from the brand (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001).Competitor attributes should also be put into consideration especially for the potato products as they face substantial competition. It should also seek to establish the kinds of substitute brands that the market offers through their composition, benefits and features to consumers (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001).
The Corn product type has brands such as BB corn chips, CC's Sanchos and Aztec. Price of the products should also be kept at a minimum to ensure that they attract as many individuals as possible. This is a marketing component that is very impactful on the analysis of the potential customers. The fact that price is an easily quantifiable variable, the prices at ‘Salty Snacks’ vs. its competitors’ prices should offer a clear avenue for competitive advantage. Lastly, the consumer perceptions of the value and impact of the products of ‘Salty Snacks’ provide a sticking balance on the events that would build on the overall prosperity of the product’s sustenance. It also addresses sufficient value acceptability for the money, the high-end as well as high-price tag solutions. It is therefore of importance that ‘Salty Snacks’ takes time in creating a thorough impression of the existent markets and the way in which the brands fit those markets to enable determination of the brand’s current position. In case that is not the actual position that ‘Salty Snacks’ wants for its brand, necessary steps can be taken to change it on the basis of the defined gaps as it analyzes the market factors (Steenkamp, Batra & Alden, 2003).
In conclusion, to improve on the average brand penetration in the market, ideal research designs should be aimed at taking into consideration factors such as identification of the exact research problems being surveyed, the goals and objectives of the marketing activities, the criterion of obtaining information, the availability of skilled and adequate manpower and availability of sufficient financial resources to carry out the research.
Bibliography:
Cayla, J. & Arnould, E. (2008) Cultural approach to branding in the global market. Journal of International Marketing, 16(4), pp. 86–112.
Batra, R., Ramaswamy, V., Alden, D., Steenkamp, J.B. & Ramachander, S. (2000) Effects of brand local and nonlocal origin on consumer attitudes in developing countries. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9(2), pp. 83–95.
Holt, D., Quelch, J., & Taylor, E., (2004) How global brands compete. Harvard Business Review, 82(9), pp. 68–75.
Kates, S. & Goh, C. (2003) Brand morphing – implications for advertising theory and practice. Journal of Advertising, 32(1), pp. 59–68.
Muniz, A. & O’Guinn, T. (2001) Brand community. Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (March), pp. 412–432.
Steenkamp, J.B., Batra, R. & Alden, D. (2003) How perceived brand globalness creates brand value. Journal of International Business Studies, 34, pp. 53–65.
