Positioning gone wrong

I’d like to pose some questions to all of our readers. Would you pay $100 for a pair of shoes under a seemingly prestigious brand name, when a few weeks later you could find them in a discount warehouse store for $20? Or if you did pay the $100, how would you feel when you saw the discounted price? My answer to these questions would be ‘obviously the brand isn’t that prestigious, if they sell all their products at bargain basement prices a few weeks later’.

As an agency, a recurring issue we often face is that of exemplifying what exactly positioning is, and how you can relate it to real life cases. The situation I describe above is a perfect example of positioning gone wrong.

A certain Australian retailer does just this; offers their products in their retail stores at high prices, boasting a product of exceptional quality, and then sells them a few weeks later in their warehouse outlets; accompanied by some absolutely atrocious TV advertisements.

The advertisements continue to boast the extreme quality of the products; how much they test them; the rigorous processes they use, yet they still sell their products for ridiculously low prices.

How does the consumer associate quality with bargain basement prices? Why would they pay more for a relatively cheap brand?

More importantly – what has happened to the brand values? What does it stand for?

Consumer confusion is a sure recipe for failure. If you need to sell old stock, remember your brand valuesstrong> and where your product/service/brand sits in the mind of the consumer. If you’re a bargain basement store, do what you like with your prices and put your product in $2 bins outside the front door. If you’re a business that sells a prestigious product of exceptional quality – don’t discount it! In almost all cases, discounting results in the death of your brand values, and all your hard work at carving your own niche in the mind of the consumer will go to waste.