Over-positioning refers to the practice of positioning a brand in a way that is too narrow or limited, potentially limiting its appeal to consumers. This can occur when a brand focuses too heavily on a specific product feature or aspect of its identity, to the exclusion of other important considerations.

For example, if a brand positions itself as the most affordable option in its category, it may appeal to price-sensitive consumers. However, this positioning strategy may also limit the brand’s appeal to customers who are willing to pay a premium for higher-quality products. Similarly, a brand that positions itself as the most luxurious option in its category may appeal to high-end consumers, but may not be as attractive to more budget-conscious shoppers.

Over-positioning can also occur when a brand becomes too closely associated with a particular product or service. For example, if a brand is known primarily for a single product, it may be difficult for it to successfully expand into other categories or markets. This can limit the brand’s growth potential and make it more vulnerable to competition.

To avoid over-positioning, it’s important for brands to take a holistic approach to their positioning strategy, considering all relevant factors such as target audience, competitive landscape, and overall business goals. By taking a more balanced approach to positioning, brands can better position themselves to appeal to a wider range of consumers and better protect themselves against the risks of over-positioning. The following are illustrative examples.

Functions
Functions that don’t draw much interest. For example, late model VCRs that featured advanced video editing features for a premium price.

Features
Features that few customers find interesting or useful. For example, including an overhyped technology in a product that doesn’t need it such as artificial intelligence for a can opener.

Quality
A high quality item in a market where customers are primarily concerned with price. For example, printer paper made with an exotic wood such that it has a much higher price than average.

Variety
Excessive variety that doesn’t attract interest. For example, standard pens available in 50 colors when most customers want blue, black and red.

Style
Styles that appeal to a small niche that isn’t enough to support sales.

Identity
A brand identity with an excessively small target market. For example, a brand of electronics for extreme weather golfers.

Tastes
Exotic flavors that few customers are brave enough to try such as a watermelon flavored rice ball.

Sizes
Package sizes that customer’s don’t need such as an unusually small bottle of water.

Rebranding is the process of making significant changes to a company’s brand in order to alter the way it is perceived by customers and the wider market. There are a variety of reasons why a company might choose to rebrand, including the desire to modernize their product or image, address customer confusion, move away from a negative legacy, or reflect a change in business strategy.

The process of rebranding typically involves updating a company’s logo, visual identity, messaging, and marketing efforts. This can be a major undertaking, and companies often need to carefully consider their target audience, competitive landscape, and overall business goals when developing a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding can have a number of benefits for companies. It can help to attract new customers, increase brand awareness and recognition, and improve customer perceptions of the brand. However, it’s important for companies to be mindful of the potential risks and challenges of rebranding, such as the potential for customer confusion or resistance to change.

Overall, rebranding can be a powerful tool for companies looking to refresh their image or reposition themselves in the market. By carefully planning and executing a rebranding strategy, companies can make significant changes to their brand and improve their chances of success. The following are common elements of rebranding.

Brand Name

Changing a brand name. For example, consolidating a series of brands in a brand family. Firms invest significant resources in achieving brand recognition such that changing your primary brand name is viewed as a drastic action that is only performed to repair a negative reputation.

Visual Branding

Changes to the visual symbols of a brand such as colors, shapes, typography, logos, packaging, promotional styling and environments.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is everything a firm wants to be in the eyes of customers. This starts with a brand concept that represents the basic idea behind a brand. Brand identity is difficult to communicate and can often change without customers noticing. For example, it might take a firm a decade before most customers recognize a major shift in a firm’s mission and vision.

Brand Legacy

Rebranding is often intended to escape the negative legacy of a brand such as poor sustainability practices or association with an out-of-date technology, fashion or product. However, in some cases a rebranding may be intended to highlight a firm’s legacy. For example, a candy company that rebrands with old fashioned logos to highlight that the brand has been part of a culture for decades.

Brand Promise

A brand promise is a short statement resembling a slogan that communicates what customers can expect of your brand. This is designed to be direct, short and memorable.

Authentic Branding

An attempt to actually change as a company as opposed to a change to brand image that doesn’t reflect underlying realities. For example, a power company that actually launches a serious program of environmental stewardship as opposed to adopting a green logo without any actual changes to strategy and operations.

Internal Branding

In cases of authentic branding, rebranding may begin internally to get employees on board with a new mission and vision.

Customer Experience

Changes to customer experience such as redesigned products and services. For example, a bicycle helmet company that rebrands after a series of safety incidents may redesign its helmets to be safer.

Pricing & Distribution

Elements of the marketing mix such as pricing and distribution may be changed along with a rebranding. For example, an ecommerce company that opens new physical shops may change its slogan and visual branding.

Promotion

It is common to promote a rebranding with extensive advertising campaigns and other promotional efforts.

Storytelling

Storytelling is the art of making information interesting. For example, a firm that wants to promote its brand legacy that captures and communicates interesting anecdotes about the firm’s past.

Experimentation

Rebranding an established brand is a high risk proposition that tends to have a high rate of failure. As such, it is common to experiment and measure results before scaling a brand change.

White label refers to products or services that are produced and designed by one company specifically for the purpose of being rebranded and sold by another company. This approach allows businesses to offer a range of products or services to their customers without having to invest in the research, development, and production of these items themselves. Instead, they can simply purchase white label products or services from a supplier and rebrand them as their own.

There are several advantages to using white label products or services. One of the main benefits is that it allows businesses to quickly and easily expand their product or service offerings without having to invest significant resources in development. This can be particularly useful for small businesses or startups that may not have the necessary expertise or resources to develop their own products. Additionally, white label products or services can often be purchased at a lower cost than if a company were to develop the item themselves, making it a more cost-effective option.

However, there are also some potential drawbacks to white label branding. One disadvantage is that companies may have less control over the quality of the products or services they are offering, as they are reliant on the supplier to provide these. Additionally, companies using white label products or services may have a harder time building a unique brand identity and differentiating themselves from their competitors.

Overall, the decision to use white label products or services should be carefully considered by businesses based on their specific goals and target audience. In some cases, this approach can be a useful way to quickly and easily expand a product or service offering, while in others it may be more beneficial to invest in developing and promoting a unique brand identity.

Manufacturing

A firm with competitive advantages in manufacturing but no ability to promote and distribute products may specifically design products to be branded by third parties. Such products may be delivered unpackaged or in plain packaging that can be branded with a label.

Brands

In some cases, a firm with deep manufacturing and marketing capabilities will produce products for another brand, such as a store brand. In this situation, the same exact product may end up being sold side-by-side at different prices.

Services

Software services are easily rebranded. It is common for business, infrastructure and consumer information technology to be branded by multiple marketers. For example, a brand selling cloud computing services may be a reseller with no infrastructure or technical capabilities of their own.

A niche is a specific group of consumers who have distinct preferences and needs. These groups are often smaller than the overall market, and can represent an opportunity for smaller companies to target and serve a specific customer base. Niches can be found in a variety of industries, and can be defined by a range of factors such as age, demographics, interests, and lifestyles. In some cases, large companies may choose to enter a variety of niches in order to counter growing competition from smaller firms and protect their market share. By targeting and serving specific niches, companies can often differentiate themselves from their competitors and build a loyal customer base. The following are examples of a niche.

Behavior
A mobile device plan for a customer who uses a great deal of bandwidth.

Benefits
A credit card for customers who want a large number of benefits such as various types of insurance.

Culture
An airline that provides authentic Japanese food on its route to Tokyo.

Demographic
Shoes designed to appeal to urban professional women between 21 and 31 years of age.

Enthusiasts
Light and durable bicycles designed for cycling enthusiasts.

Feature Reduction
Removing common features in a product or service that some customers find cumbersome, invasive or annoying. For example, a television remote without cloud based voice search.

Features
Features that most people don’t use but that are important to a small group of customers. For example, a web browser that allows you to configure hotkeys.

Geographic
A restaurant that offers local specialties.

Language
A Korean language television channel offered in the United States.

Lifestyle
Organic food with healthy ingredients.

Occasions
A cake shop that specializes in events such as weddings.

Opinions
A newspaper that targets readers with a particular set of opinions.

Price Sensitivity
A luxury fashion brand that targets customers who aren’t particularly price sensitive.

Risk Tolerance
An unusually safe model of car designed for customers who prioritize safety.

Status
A fashion brand with aspirational products designed to represent social status.

Style
A snowboard brand that targets a particular sense of style in its designs.

Brand objectives refer to the specific goals that a brand is working towards. These goals can be both long-term end-goals, such as increasing revenue or expanding market share, as well as intermediate steps towards these end-goals, such as improving the brand’s image or positioning in the market. In order to effectively achieve their brand objectives, companies often need to develop and implement a range of strategies, including marketing and advertising efforts, product development and innovation, and customer service initiatives. By setting clear brand objectives and working towards them, companies can better align their efforts and resources in order to achieve their desired outcomes. The following are common brand objectives.

Identity & Image
Establishing an identity for a brand in the market. Measured with surveys that discover how a brand is viewed by your target market.

Recognition
The percentage of customers who recognize your brand name and visual symbols such as logo, packaging, brand colors and products.

Awareness
Brand awareness is the percentage of customers who can recall your brand. For example, top of mind awareness is the percentage of customers who name your brand first when given a product category such as “coffee.”

Engagement
A measure of how often customers interact with your brand. Interactions are defined by you and can include things like visiting your website, visiting a location, making an order and reviewing a product.

Brand Loyalty
The number of customers who regularly purchase your brand.

Brand Advocate
The number of customers who recommend your brand to others.

Brand Equity
The estimated value of your brand.

Market Share
The percentage of your target market that are customers.

Margins
Revenue margins of a brand driven by factors such as brand identity, brand awareness, brand legacy and premiumization of products.

A generic brand is a type of brand that does not have a distinct or unique image. Instead, it is marketed as being equivalent in quality to more expensive, well-known brands, but at a lower price point. Generic brands often have nondescript packaging and brand names that do not stand out, and they are commonly found on the shelves of supermarkets, convenience stores, and other retail outlets alongside more established brands. These brands are often formulated to be similar to the dominant brands in their category, with the aim of offering customers a lower-cost alternative.

Generic branding refers to the practice of using generic or non-proprietary terms to describe a product or service, rather than using a specific brand name. This approach is often used in industries where there are a large number of competitors offering similar products or services.

One of the main advantages of generic branding is that it allows customers to focus on the product or service itself, rather than being swayed by the perceived prestige or reputation of a particular brand. This can be particularly useful in industries where there are many competing brands, as it allows customers to compare products more easily based on their quality and features, rather than being influenced by brand loyalty or image.

Another advantage of generic branding is that it can be more cost-effective for companies. By using generic branding, companies can avoid the costs associated with developing and promoting a specific brand name. This can be particularly beneficial for smaller companies or startups that may not have the resources to invest in extensive branding efforts.

However, there are also some potential drawbacks to using generic branding. One disadvantage is that it can be more difficult for companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors when using generic branding. Additionally, companies may have a harder time building a loyal customer base without a strong brand identity.

Overall, the decision to use generic branding should be carefully considered by companies based on their specific business goals and target audience. In some cases, generic branding may be a useful approach, while in others it may be more beneficial to invest in developing and promoting a specific brand name.