Market Positioning & Framing Market Research

Give customers reason to consume and be loyal to your products

Challenges abound for today’s managers. Customers face many competing choices because of a global market. Innovation and technical product differentiation are often short-lived. At the same time, customers internalize deeply held notions about products that are difficult to change.

Market Positioning is the customers’ categorization in their mind of a product or service in relation to the competition. It is particularly useful in New Product Development, Customer Acquisition, Communications, Brand Development and Competitive Planning strategies.

Positioning helps companies focus strategy on loyal, profitable customers and can help achieve competitive advantage. Well-positioned companies design all parts of the marketing mix---product, place, promotion and price---to achieve a consistent, credible positioning in customers and stakeholders’ mind.

Our Market Positioning Approach

As a leading global market research company for over 25 years, SIS International conducts positioning market research with the aim of researching elements that are of value to the customer and target segment. As part of the SIS Integrated Research approach, our specialists conduct several layers of intelligence gathering for a full view of the market landscape. This approach includes a thorough investigation into the market context, positioning, credibility and opportunity surrounding the product. We use many analytical and reporting tools to evaluate and illustrate our clients’ positioning from the customers’ perspective.

SIS Reference Framing: Creating a New Paradigm

Reference Framing is the defining of the product on new terms. In markets where there is an established market leader, new entrants realize that it is an uphill battle and very difficult to displace that leader on conventional terms. Instead, these companies redefine the category and their product so lessen their competitor’s advantage. Reference Framing is useful when there is:

• Established market leaders
• Customer skepticism
• Perceived faulty performance
• High expectations

Consider, as an example, Electronic Manufacturer X’s MP3 player. It launched the MPOD with a revolutionary technology to stream video and communicate with friends on a small MP3 device. While the MPOD became a market leader, Competitor Y immediately launched a nearly identical substitute. Competitor Y may try to “reframe” the customers’ understanding for its substitute product. This would allow Competitor Y to compete on its own favorable terms, rather than on a market leader’s terms.

SIS further researches the obstacles to framing that could prevent the success of a new paradigm. The process becomes iterative and we work the client to successfully implement a successful frame. When enacted successfully, reframing helps strengthen competitive advantages and weaken competitive threats.

The SIS Difference

• Our Integrated Research approach combining several levels of intelligence for a “full market view”
• Our Full-service custom competitive intelligence & market research consulting services
• Our Global & US domestic market coverage
• Our 25 years of competitive intelligence, market research and market intelligence expertise
• Our corporate background grounded in market strategy
• Our focus on strategic analysis and actionable insights, beyond the data

Thought Leadership

Our Past Experience