Brand Positioning Unveiled: An Insider's Perspective from Industry Professionals

Sammanfattning: Research Purpose & Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on how individual marketing- & brand-managers conceptualise and approach brand positioning. This study aims to vertically deepen the current knowledge of brand positioning in practice as well as horizontally broaden the literature by taking a unique managerial perceptual perspective. Research Question: How do brand- and marketing-managers conceptualise as well as approach brand positioning? Literature Review: The literature review outlines the theoretical lenses of brand positioning, including brand orientations and schools of positioning. A critical perspective on the difficulties of making sense of branding concepts is further presented. Together these parts provide the thesis with the necessary tools for analysing the empirical data. Methodology: A qualitative multiple case study with an abductive reasoning method has been conducted. The empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews, nine interviews with brand- and marketing-managers were conducted. The data was analysed using a three-step approach: sorting, reducing, and arguing. Managerial/practical implications: This pioneering thesis emphasises the importance of managerial perception and approach to brand positioning, suggesting discussions on market- and brand-orientation as well as positioning schools of thought for enhanced brand coherence and collaboration within teams. Theoretical Contributions: This thesis contributes to theory in three key ways. Firstly, it addresses the lack of a unified definition of brand positioning by studying managers' conceptualisations, revealing correlations and shared strategic elements among their definitions. Secondly, it introduces a novel bottom-up approach to positioning, focusing on individual brandand marketing-managers' perspectives and approaches. Lastly, it extends the existing framework of five schools of positioning by introducing a new school called "Positioning as a Chameleon", which blends multiple existing schools and adapts through strategic camouflage.