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Consumer Decisions and the Workings of the Psyche When we talk about psychological factors that influence consumer decisions, we are referring to the workings of the mind or psyche: motivation, learning and socialization, attitudes and beliefs. Motivation ...

What Makes You Different and Better? Positioning is a strategic process that marketers use to determine the place or “niche” an offering should occupy in a given market, relative to other customer alternatives. When you position a product or service, you answ...

When It’s Time to Change Direction After they are initially introduced to the market, products, services, and brands are constantly being repositioned as a result of changes in competitive and market situations. Repositioning involves changing the market’s ...

What you’ll learn to do: explain repositioning and the associated risks and complexities of repositioning a product or service Positioning is a powerful tool, but when you position a product, service, or brand, the world doesn’t stand still. Market conditions...

A Simple Formula A positioning statement is one sentence that succinctly identifies the target market and spells out what you want them to think about your brand. This statement should include 1) the target segment, 2) the brand name, 3) the product/service...

What you’ll learn to do: develop and evaluate positioning statements based on defined criteria After marketers work through the process of homing in on the best positioning strategy, they arrive at the final step: the positioning statement. The positioning st...

What business is Starbucks really in? “We wanted to build a third place between home and work,” says Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz, as he sits in one of his cafés, “at a time in America when people are hungry for human connection.” Watch the following video ...

Getting to the Right Position Arriving at the best positioning and differentiation strategy involves a process. The goal of the process is to design an identity that both confirms the value of the product, service, or brand in the customer’s mind and explains...

What you’ll learn to do: explain the process of selecting a positioning and differentiation strategy Positioning and differentiation are powerful tools to help you establish the market position you want for your product or service. In this section you’ll lear...

What you’ll learn to do: define product positioning and differentiation, and explain why they are important to marketing a product or service Positioning addresses an important question: What do you want to be known for? Positioning provides the basic founda...

Putting Consumer Attitudes and Beliefs to the Test Just how powerful are consumer attitudes and beliefs? Are they so powerful that they can fool consumers during a taste test? Watch the following video to see the power of consumer attitudes in action as the ...

Why create a product or service positioning statement that aligns with a value proposition and a target segment? Ever since you were small, you have loved special occasions and gatherings. It started with sprawling extended-family picnics when you were a ch...

Instructions Write a post for the Discussion on this topic, addressing the questions below. Each part should be 1–2 paragraphs or several bullet points in length. Part 1: Identifying the Customer and Problem Describe a primary decision maker in your target ...

Applying the Concepts: Finn’s Family Buys a Pet Do you remember Finn, the newest little consumer who arrived at the beginning of this module? Let’s suppose that Finn’s parents decide they want him to grow up with an animal friend. This gives us a chance to ap...

Making B2B Buying Decisions The organizational buying process contains eight stages, which are listed in the figure below. Although these stages parallel those of the consumer buying process, there are important differences that have a direct bearing on the m...

With the rise in mobile communications, Air Canada found itself in a situation where its technology just wasn’t keeping up with what its passengers and employees needed. It initiated a buying process to figure out what new systems and processes it should imple...

Individual consumers are not the only buyers in a market. Companies and other organizations also need goods and services to operate, run their businesses, and produce the offerings they provide to one another and to consumers. These organizations, which includ...

What you’ll learn to do: explain the B2B buying process and factors influencing B2B purchasing decisions Up to this point, our discussion about decision making has focused on individual consumers (B2C). Next we will shift attention to the decision making of b...

People Influencing People Social factors represent another important set of influences on consumer behavior. Specifically, these are the effects of people and groups influencing one another through culture and subculture, social class, reference groups, and f...

What you’ll learn to do: describe the process of implementing a positioning strategy With your new positioning strategy and a well-formulated positioning statement, you are poised to take action. But . . . how exactly? What comes next is more familiar than ...