Theoretical Aspects of Product Positioning in the Market
Theoretical Aspects of Product Positioning in the Market

Summary/Abstract: The article consists of fourteen parts, starting with the introduction where the novelty, the problem of the research, the object of the research, the purpose of the research and the research methods are described. The purpose of the article is systemization and thorough description of the knowledge and information (found in a large number of sources) about the positioning concept, its position in the STP model, coherent description of the product positioning process steps as recommendations for successful product positioning process accomplishment. It is obvious that to be successful a product must occupy an explicit, distinct, and proper place, in the minds of potential and existing consumers, relative to other rival products on the market. Product positioning is the tool to achieve the above mentioned result. The article analyses how the product should be positioned on the market. The second part of the article reveals various authors’ conceptions of product positioning in the market. Those include: Etzel, Walker, Stanton (1997), Ries and Trout (1986), Kotler (2006), Armstrong (2006), Bhat (1998), Fill (2006), Ferrel (1997), Lamb, Hair, McDaniel (2004), Boone and Kurz (2001). The third part defines the basement of product positioning process – the STP model, which includes the following parts: segmentation, targeting and positioning. The fourth part describes product positioning steps, interpreted by different scholars. There are two samples of product positioning process given (by Hooley (2004) and Hutt, Spech (2004)) and a model created by the authors of this article. The seventh part, identification and analysis of competitive products in the market, describes the best means how to distinguish competitive products, different levels of competition. The eighth part, identification of determinant attributes and measuring their significance to the user, reveals the techniques for selection of determinant attributes and criteria for successful determinant attributes. The ninth part, identification of current position of the product and other competing products according to determinant attributes, shows possible ways of carrying out this product positioning process stage. The tenth part, composition of the positioning map, reveals the process of their creation and provides reasons why it is such a powerful tool for examining the positions of products. The eleventh part, the determination of the desired position of the product, speaks about the ideal position of a product and where companies want to position their products (the desired position).

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