• Unit 7: The Study of Brand Positioning Using Integrated Marketing Communications

    This unit will focus on the process of brand positioning, which describes how a brand compares to its competition and how customers perceive it. Social listening is considered real-time knowledge, and it is critical to assessing brand positioning. Social listening tracking is often used to provide management with a clear picture of how consumers think about the brand. Brand managers can track consumer social media behavior and gather the latest consumer insight and intention in a grassroots manner using paid tools such as TalkWalker and Hootsuite. This unit will also discuss the brand positioning model, gap analysis, and digital marketing in light of brand positioning.

    Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.

    • Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

      • evaluate the impact of a brand's integrated marketing communications in building brand equity;
      • explain the results of a brand exploratory analysis from a brand equity/consumer perception listening study;
      • analyze consumer sentiment through social listening techniques to identify shifts in consumer perceptions;
      • analyze collected data from available websites and public sources to determine consumer sentiment; and
      • evaluate the consumer response to a brand positioning relaunch strategy to determine the impact on sales.

    • 7.1: Brand Positioning Model

      Brand positioning is how consumers perceive the brand versus competitive brands within a sector. This image of a brand is a highly crafted response to all the distinctive elements of the brand, from logo to value proposition to consumer-facing factors. The sub-strategy of brand positioning often aligns with 1) Quality Positioning: brands are worth the exchange, so quality here is the key; 2) Value or Price Positioning: price point signifies value, so the lowest price is acceptable lower quality but affordable; 3) Benefit Positioning: there is a unique, proprietary feature of the brand or service which sets it apart from the competition; 4) Problem and Solution Positioning: the branded product is hero delivering direct solutions to consumers' needs; 5) Competitor-Based Positioning: head-to-head comparison as a critical advantage; and 6) Influencer-Driven Positioning: consumer associate popular and well-loved celebrities with their affinity for the brand itself.

      • The Language of Brands in Social Media Book

        Brand managers have only recently started using social media listening to gain insight into consumer brand perceptions. Therefore, the impact of social media listening on brand strategic decision-making is still being determined. This research details the significant effectiveness of social media listening (consumer "language") in describing the brand image. Create an interactive chart assessing the existing social media data collection research versus Figure 1 in this article, which tracked social media conversations. Use this comparison chart to evaluate the power of social listening as a consumer insight tool.

      • Integrated Marketing Page

        Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the primary strategy brand managers deploy to convey information to the end consumer. The use of tools such as the Internet and social media have become more important and efficient means to create a brand image and point of difference. Review the elements of the IMC and identify which tools might enhance or overlap the new model of digital marketing. To apply the concepts to real scenarios in brand management, complete the exercises in the boxes. Use your notebook to create 2-3 sentence answers to the challenge questions. You must refer back to key concepts in the resource and charts when included.

    • 7.2: Gap Analysis for Opportunity

      While formal qualitative and quantitative research studies provide data on consumer intentions, consumer insight relies on the prompted insight of the consumer respondents surveyed. Social Listening is a new, data-based method to "scrape" raw consumer content. With the advent of unfiltered "sharing" on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and even community blogs, brand managers can identify emerging trends and use big data to gain real-time feedback.

      • Developing Insights from Social Media Book

        While formal market research has historically represented consumer-centric information, social listening is now considered the most insightful. Review the model, Figure 1, the schematics of social listening, and its application to the social media platform Twitter. List the advantages and disadvantages of social listening for strategic insight, paying particular attention to the error factors discovered from this study.

        Twitter is a social media sharing site considered a snapshot of consumer and industry sentiment. Review Figure 1 in this article, then identify how the collective opinion fits into the signal of opportunity. Pay attention to the secondary retweets that measure the interest level of those who have chosen to follow the tweet trails.

    • 7.3: Digital and Promotional Marketing

      Brand managers use digital marketing as an enhancement to traditional promotional marketing tactics. Unlike traditional consumer-facing promotional tactics like advertising or selling, digital marketing engages with consumers through electronic technology and interacts via online platforms only. Digital marketing is considered to have a much broader reach due to the global acceptance of the internet to share and gain information. Social media marketing, a sub-tactic of digital marketing, is flexible, responsive, and data-driven; brands can easily shift communication based on the response from consumers. Social Listening and Predictive Data Analytics are resources to better target consumers in the digital marketing landscape.

      • How to Catch Consumers' Attention Book

        Research studies inform brand managers on the impact of social media response strategy and digital customer engagement. Using Figure 1 from the reading, which showcases the results of one such quantitative study, identify the factors that affect consumer response to brand image most.

    • Unit 7 Study Resources

      This review video is an excellent way to review what you've learned so far and is presented by one of the professors who created the course.

    • Unit 7 Assessment

      • Unit 7 Assessment Quiz
        Receive a grade

        Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.

        • This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
        • You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
        • You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.