A Re-look on Brand Positioning
An integrated model of brand personality, segmentation analysis and means-end chain concept for the brand Ford EcoSport
You are looking at the magic brand Ford EcoSport which enjoys high brand equity in the Indian market. What makes it a miracle so it enjoys consistent sales and customer delight? The word of mouth of delighted customers is a major determinant of the consistent sales figure beside the other plus features of the vehicle. The other significant determinant is the brand personality.
Brand Personality
Brand Personality is a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a brand name. A brand personality is something to which the consumer can relate; an effective brand increases its brand equity by having a consistent set of traits that a specific consumer segment enjoys. This personality is a qualitative value-add that a brand gains in addition to its functional benefits. The big 5 dimensions of Brand Personality postulated by Jennifer Aaker are sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness.
If you rank the above dimensions, Ford EcoSport would perhaps have the highest ranking for excitement followed by ruggedness, competence, sophistication, and sincerity respectively.
Sensible Segmentation Analysis
William D Wells, who is considered to be a dependable customer segmentation expert has classified 8 male psycho-graphic segments based on general lifestyle dimensions. Please refer to my previous article titled ‘Want a larger mind space through Brand Promotion?’ to understand personalities, the style of living, and their purchasing power. This classification enables the marketers to understand the customers in terms of their personality, the style of living, and their purchasing power.
Perhaps the segmentation of Ford EcoSport Customers may be Achievers who are status-conscious, thoughtful, and discriminating buyers with high socio-economic status would make a purchase decision for Ford EcoSport in India.
Out of the 8 male psycho-graphic segments, I would rather suggest aiming additionally at the following 2 target segments vis-a-vis the he-man segment and the pleasure-oriented man segment.
The He-Man Segment
The Pleasure oriented man segment
This segmentation, targeting, and positioning complete the selling job much easier for the brand Ford EcoSport in India.
Meaningful diagnosis of Brand Ford EcoSport — means-end chain concept
A majority of Brand campaigns do not dwell on the most important positioning tagline, instead, try to say everything in an ad campaign and end up saying nothing. To enable a meaningful diagnosis of the brand, a brand can be bifurcated into three major divisions.
1. A brand is a bundle of attributes — all the ingredients that make up a good product are called attributes.
- For example, the Ford EcoSport has 1 Diesel Engine and 1 Petrol Engine on offer. The diesel engine is 1498 cc while the petrol engine is 1496 cc. It is available with manual and automatic transmission. The attributes are tangible elements that are very important to the manufacturer, but the customers see only the benefits.
2. A brand is a bundle of benefits — benefits are tangible and intangible elements from the perspective of customers. Benefits are further divided into functional benefits and psycho-social benefits. The functional benefits are the actual benefits derived out of attributes and psycho-social benefits are psychological and sociological in nature.
- For example, the functional benefit of Ford EcoSport depending upon the variant and fuel type is the mileage of 14.7 to 21.7 kilometre per liter. The psycho-social benefit as depicted in Ford EcoSport Ad campaigns is ‘Discover the more in you’ which is a clarion call for triggering the change and making an inner resolve and is an initiative to encourage every individual to be calm, compassionate and responsible on the road.
3. A brand is a bundle of values — Rokeach has postulated 18 instrumental and 18 terminal values. Terminal Values are the goals that a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime and instrumental values are the preferred modes of behavior to achieve those goals.
- The following table reveals those instrumental and terminal values and some of them can give cues for building a better Ford EcoSport Ad campaign incorporating values like a sense of accomplishment, responsibility, ambition, and family security.
The Instrumental & Terminal values
The Re-discovery of Brand Positioning Taglines
All successful brand campaigns tend to have a nice fabric of the best attributes, benefits, and values. A vast majority of the brand campaigns sometimes neglect values and commit the mistake of promoting more of attributes and less of benefits. To achieve a near-perfect combination of all A→B→V, a continuous set of focus group interviews cutting across several segments have to be necessarily conducted in order to arrive at the effective tagline.
The intersection of all three circles A-B-V generates the golden reuleaux triangle which would almost tantamount to a relevant and appropriate positioning tag line.
The proper identification of all possible attributes, benefits, and values inside a brand in an innovative way helps in the arriving of the tagline making the brand powerful and sensible.
The following table tries to address the intersection of the three factors, attributes, benefits, and values of Ford EcoSport.
Thus, from the above table, one can decipher 3 positioning taglines.
- Ford EcoSport -‘An exciting and courageous drive’ -highlighting easy maneuverability in city traffic.
- Ford EcoSport -‘Dignified and Responsible’ -manifesting family security connected to strong build and safety.
- Ford EcoSport - ‘Independent Identity’ -obviously the array of colors available for exterior design.
I would like to coax the manufacturers, marketers, and advertisers of Ford India to take a re-look at A → B → V of Ford EcoSport, in cognizance with the above facts for evidently effective results.
Suggested Model for generating a Positioning Tagline
To sustain in the market, every brand has to take into cognizance of the brand personality dimensions and consistently diagnose the personality, lifestyle, ad the purchasing power of the appropriate segments/markets, and further make a meaningful diagnosis of the attributes, benefits and values and rediscover the brand positioning tag lines which would be almost right and seldom go wrong.
