Are You "Sprite" or Are You "Un-Cola"?

In marketing there a basically 2 approaches to positioning. Head-to-head puts your brand up against a competitor, often times without mincing words. Just recently I saw an advertisement for Mattress Firm offering a significant price difference between them and their competitor Casper. I was actually quite shocked that they had gone so frontal to their competitor. The downside to this approach is that it often times portrays the brand as desperate, or angry which can lead to a negative consumer perception of the brand. There is however, one major advantage to going "head-to-head" in positioning: brand association. By using a competitors name you've effectively rode their wave of consumer awareness and marketing to then promote your brand offering. In other words, Mattress Firm doesn't have to invest resources to educate the consumer about their product or services. The competitor has already done that for them! All that Mattress Firm needs to do is offer their price difference and undercut the competitor (Casper).

In "differentiation" positioning, Sprite looked to create a new niche and soda market that was different than the competitor. We'll look at more insights into differentiation

positioning in future posts.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansutter/2016/05/06/easy-tips-on-how-to-create-a-brand-position-for-your-product-or-service/#4400d56a1073