Key strategies and issues of positioning: A review of past studies

Abstract

Despite the significant role of positioning on developing competitive advantage it has been noticed that, in the recent academic literature few studies highlight the key strategies to positioning a product/brand successfully. This study tries to fill in this gap by highlighting the key positioning strategies along with some guidelines for the marketers for formulating effective positioning of their brand in the market. A good number of prior research studies on market positioning of brand/product between the years 1958 to 2010 are reviewed with a view to prepare this study. Though the study of positioning reveals that firms use different positioning concepts but most studies highlighted the use of product attributes, product categories and competitors as main ways for positioning. This study is based upon the previous studies which are mainly based on the Western context and hence findings may not be directly generalized everywhere and concludes with suggestions for further research. This literature review integrates the findings of the prior studies and focuses on highlighting key positioning strategies along with some key points that need to remember during positioning and suggests marketing practitioners some guidelines to develop effective positioning strategies for achieving sustainable competitive advantage.