27 Ways to Create Your Competitive Positioning & Business Differentiation (with Examples)

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27 Ways to Create Your
Competitive Positioning
& Business
Differentiation (with
Examples)

What is your competitive
positioning?
It’s the unique, differentiated perception of your brand and business in the
minds of your target audience.Your competitive advantage over others.
So it’s usually not one thing, but the whole story put together.
But there are a few competitive advantage factors and strategy that you
can follow for your business model.

Positioned itself as a magnet that would
immediately help the young men lacking
confidence, to having a masculine charm that
would make young women run after them.
1. A targeted audience
• Serve a specific type of customer who can relate to your brand and start using it, build a
loyal customer following, and then expand to a broader customer base.
• Brand Focus: Axe.

While their business fell within the scope of
men's apparel, by focusing on a single product:
men’s pants and perfecting it, they worked in a
niche segment of their own and won at it, before
expanding to other categories of menswear as
well.
2. Niche focus
• A business can also focus on an uber-specific market or create one of its own.
• Brand Focus: Bonobos

This is a bold brand that focuses on a very
specific problem: the embarrassment of the
smell of your nature's call.
PooPourri launched a solution, and went on to
become one of the most sought-after gifts in the
holiday season in 2014.
• You can also create a niche by solving a specific problem within a specific industry, targeted
to a specific client. In fact, for small businesses, this is the quickest way to establish yourself.
• Brand Focus: PooPourri
3. A specific solution

While most supermarkets and grocery stores
tend to put the best product in front of their
customers, a startup led by Ben Simon, decided
to change all that by selling all the 'ugly
produce', the ones that would normally be
trashed, at discounted prices.
• Sometimes the way to create a robust differentiation is by going against the norm in the
industry.
• Brand Focus: Imperfect Produce
4. Breaking the industry
rules

The MacIntosh computers when the world only
knew PCs andWindows, the iPod when the
world had become comfortable with the
Walkman, the MacBookAir when people had
grown used to lugging around heavy laptops -
Apple has consistently broken the norm and
launched something new which the world never
expected.
• Building your competitive positioning as a brand which is constantly innovating, is hard to
accomplish, because you have to keep it up at all costs.
• Brand Focus: Apple
5. Innovation

When all the cameras in the market had to
be managed very delicately, GoPro
launched an action camera that was
waterproof, lightweight but strong, and
most of all, wearable.All at a modest
price.
• You can create a differentiated product positioning strategy by creating a product which is
completely unique and hasn’t existed in the market before.
• Brand Focus: GoPro
6. Product Features

The Ultimate Driving Machine.
It focuses on delivering high quality with
the best-in-class engineering, with a
sophisticated and comfortable driving
experience.
• When you want to position your brand as the best in performance, then you of course have
to consistently deliver on that. Not just once, but over a period of time, for the positioning to
really stick in the minds of the audience.
• Brand Focus: BMW
7. Performance
Image source: https://howbritseesit.wordpress.com

The founder of DeathWish Coffee, Mike
Brown, a small business owner, understood
that some people are just looking for really
strong coffee. And that's what he based
the brand differentiation around. Simple,
direct, functional.
• We had features, then performance.While these are differentiation, going one step further
would be focusing on a specific benefit that the customer can get.
• Brand Focus: DeathWish Coffee
8. Functional Benefit

• Sometimes functional benefits can be made even stronger by proven, scientific claims,
patents, or trademarks, that give you an edge over the competition.
• Brand Focus: Whole Foods
The top retailer of natural and organic products
in the US, theWhole Foods brand not only has a
positioning, but also a trademark of 'America's
Healthiest Grocery Store'.
9. Claims

This ice-cream brand based their whole
proposition on having 31 flavors of ice cream,
one for each day of the month. So no matter
what your taste buds are craving, they have
something for you, and new options, always.
• Though research says that too many brands can confuse customers, sometimes flexibility of options
to choose from is exactly what makes the customer, or a group of them, seek out a brand.
• Brand Focus: Baskin-Robbins
10. Options

The brand recognized quite quickly that the
most powerful way to differentiate themselves
in the minds of the customers was to use
emotional connections. So they positioned the
brand as one associated with connections,
happiness, a good life, smiles, etc.
• A brand is not just about the direct product benefits. It gains recognition and popularity because of the
underlying benefit that comes from using this brand. Because people buy emotions, not products.
• Brand Focus: Coca-Cola
11. Emotional Benefit
Image source: http://www.88phases.com

• Price is one of the biggest differentiation factors, and a common question to ask while
creating your buyer persona is how price-sensitive your audience is.
• Brand Focus: Walmart
12. Price
But remember, that if you want to keep low
prices, your competitors can always undercut
you, and you may get sucked into a price war
you cannot control. So don’t just go for low
prices as your competitive positioning, unless
you have a business model like the 99c store.

Unlike other luxury cars, it's not just about being
expensive and plush.You can't just pick up a RR
from the showroom. If the company decides
they are okay for you to own a RR, you order a
bespoke Rolls Royce from scratch.
• Many brands claim to be able to customize their products and services to meet their client’s
needs to aT. And in fact, for the service industry that’s almost a given.
• Brand Focus: Rolls Royce
13. Customization

It is the highest craft brewery of the urban
world, and it includes a restaurant.
There can be other urban breweries at an even
higher level. But it would probably not have the
same view and thus, never have the same
competitive advantage.
• Sometimes you can choose to create a business model in a way where the biggest differentiation could
be the physical location of your brand.This could be especially applicable in the case of brick-and-
mortar institutions like hotels and restaurants.
• Brand Focus: Level 33
14. Location

It follows theTupperware direct selling model.
It insists on building a close relationship with the
buyer by letting them buy it only from their reps.
Thermomix is the only brand adapting it in the
kitchen appliance industry, which helps to create
their differentiation.
• Sometimes you can even use a distribution channel or availability as a source of
differentiation.
• Brand Focus:Thermomix
15. Distribution Channels

The brand's purpose is to clean up the ocean
and coastlines, one pound at a time. And you
can help by buying a bracelet, which will fund
it. One bracelet = one pound of trash. So
essentially, though the bracelet is the
product they sell, this business and brand is
all about the purpose.
• Though you should have a purpose with a higher good in mind, and not just for a
positioning, sometimes if you stay true to your purpose with every business and
communication decision, your brand will automatically generate its own differentiation.
• Brand Focus: 4Ocean
16. Purpose

Always states its mission is to: empower
women to live life without limits through
trusted feminine care products and
confidence and puberty education. By
connecting its mission to its products, and
creating a differentiation with all other
similar brands in the market.
• While the purpose is the fundamental of why a brand exists, the mission and vision of a
brand is how, through their products/ services they aim to do good for a specific set of
people, in a specific way.
• Brand Focus: Always
17. Mission & Vision
Image source: http://theinspirationroom.com

This retailer of outdoor sports clothing has
always championed the cause of protecting
the environment, protesting against
measures that could destroy it, and helping
people participate in movements to save it.
• Your business can stand out by what it stands for, even more than what it sells
• Brand Focus: Patagonia
18. Values

This beauty brand bases not just its
positioning, but also its name, on the thermal
plankton from the Pyrenees sources. All their
products have at least some active
ingredients from there, and they have
retained this story for almost 70 years.
• You can also differentiate by the ingredients or composition of your business products.
• Brand Focus: Biotherm
19. Process (Source/
Ingredients)

Even though it has a close
competitor in Body Shop, which also
claims to be good for the
environment, the positioning of
having their cosmetic products
handmade, along with minimal-
waste environmental-friendly
packaging, really gives Lush an edge.
• You can also create your competitive advantage and positioning by the process in which
your products are manufactured.
• Brand Focus: Lush
20. Process (Method)

Pizza is one of the most common
foods for home delivery. Dominó’s
created their differentiation by the
delivery under 30 min or free
concept, which is how the brand is
remembered even today.
• Uniqueness in process by which your customers actually receive your products or services.
• Brand Focus: Domino's Pizza
21. Process (Delivery)

While many other cosmetic brands go by
the glamorous, fashionable look, Benefit
Cosmetics really stands out by its girly,
cheeky, playful, fun, 'grabbing life by
the giggles' way.
Related: How to Choose the Brand Color
Palette forYour Business
• You can choose to differentiate with your brand look and feel to break industry norms.
• Brand Focus: Benefit
22. Brand Personality
(Look and Feel)

MailChimp is an online marketing
platform, best known as an email
marketing tool.And while it is free and
simple to use, it differentiates from most
of its competitors by its unique, creative,
fun ways of tone of messaging.
• A tone of voice is the style of written and audible communication through which the brand expresses
itself.This follows the overall personality of the brand, and can be a big differentiating factor.
• Brand Focus: MailChimp
23. Brand Personality
(Tone of Voice)

This pizza restaurant tried to prove that
wrong by having their whole
team comprised of people with Down
Syndrome, to help them live a life of
dignity and to pick up professional skills
to prepare them for a better future.
• The people who run your business or brand can also create your competitive positioning.
• Brand Focus: La Locanda dei Girasoli
24. People
Image source: http://news.oasipark.com

Ikea turned this upside down, by putting
the onus of the user experience on the
buyer. Some aspects of it can
even induce pain in customers. But it
makes sure that the assembly process is
smooth, while staying a fun challenge.
• When customers are exploring the products to buy, they want to know that it will be easy to
use them. And once they have bought, they want to have a good experience of using the
products. Normally most companies would try to make this process as simple as possible.
• Brand Focus: IKEA
25. User Experience

A customer has millions of options and real
customer reviews. And even then, after you buy, if
you change your mind, you can send it back
without any hassle. It is not just a shopping
experience. It has truly brought a new meaning to
the term customer experience.
• Service levels can really bring an added level of differentiation, especially if other brands are not
really making it easy for the customer
• Brand Focus: Amazon
26. Customer Experience

For years the Unilever brand Lux has positioned itself as the
soap of choice for superstars.
While the soap itself is nothing special, its aspirational brand
image as the soap of celebrity actors has stayed constant.
• When your brand is endorsed by a person or organization who already has good credibility in the
market, it differentiates you in the minds of the buyers, even elevates your positioning.
• Brand Focus: Lux
27. Endorsement
Image source: https://nl.pinterest.com/lindatee1/

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