3.19 Product Positioning Chart

To analyze the relation market position of existing products or brands on critical aspects to help establish a competing strategy.

Understanding where your product fits within the market is critical to its success.

A Product Positioning Chart is an effective tool that designers and marketers use.

Placing products and/or services on a grid-based on two variables, such as price or quality allows the design team to see where there are gaps in the market and where a product or service might fit.

Product positioning is an important element of a marketing plan.

Product positioning is the process marketers use to determine how to best communicate their products attributes to their target customers based on customer needs, competitive pressures, available communication channels, and carefully crafted key messages.

To create a Product Positioning Map:

Identify two critical design variables of a product as the X-axis and Y-axis of the positioning map.
Mark the position of each competitor along the X and Y axis based on their position of these variables.
Determine your relative position in the map.
Different positioning maps can be developed based on a different combination of variables.

This chart shows the retail market today and the art of retail branding. Competitive positioning, brand promises, segmentation strategies, and the influx of online retailing are shown.

Where is the retail market heading?

With new of poor sales and store closings, where can retailers go from here?

The major positioning categories include:

Positioning by product attribute (product feature and/or benefit)
Positioning by user
Positioning by product class
Positioning versus competition
Positioning by use/application
Positioning by quality or value

Product Positioning Chart Example:

These design variables could be identified in:

- Human Function

- Technical Function

- Production Function

UVC Sterilizer