Brand Positioning Effectiveness as A Converging Point for Brand Positioning Strategies, Brand Love and Market Mavens: An Insight into Consumers’ Perspective

Abstract

Brand Positioning is an important concept in marketing. Despite its long history and importance among researchers there is scant literature clarifying the extent to which different brand positioning strategies contribute towards brand positioning effectiveness. This dissertation comprises of three complementary empirical studies aimed at explaining the relationship between three different brand positioning strategies, brand positioning effectiveness, brand love and market mavens. The central element of the first study, which is the cornerstone of this dissertation is aimed at finding the relationship between brand positioning strategies (namely; benefit brand positioning strategy, surrogate brand positioning strategy and feature brand positioning strategy) and brand positioning effectiveness. In doing so, comparison between relative effectiveness of different brand positioning strategies is made. To add on, the first study is also aimed to find the relationship between the three brand positioning strategies and the five dimensions of brand positioning effectiveness (namely; favourability, dissimilarity, uniqueness, credibility and sustainability). The purpose of the second study is to explore the relationship between the three brand positioning strategies and brand love where brand positioning effectiveness is proposed to act as a mediator between the three brand positioning strategies and brand love. The goal of the third study is to investigate the role of market mavens as a moderator between the relationship of the three different brand positioning strategies and brand love. Survey data of 607 young consumers of private universities in Pakistan was collected. The dissertation chose high street fashion retail brands as its empirical setting. Results showed that benefit brand positioning strategy and surrogate brand positioning strategy are more effective than feature brand positioning strategy. The findings are different but not opposing while analysing the relationship of the three brand positioning strategies and the five dimensions of brand positioning effectiveness. There is evidence for complementary mediation of brand positioning effectiveness between the relationship of benefit positioning strategy, surrogate positioning strategy, feature brand positioning strategy and brand love. Moreover, results show that all three brand positioning strategies have a relationship with brand love which is moderated by market mavens. This dissertation presents concrete practical implications for brand managers of fashion retail which will enable them to position their product offering in a distinct perceptual space in the consumer’s mind.