The Ultimate Guide to Product Repositioning

The marketplace is an ever shifting thing. What is popular now is suddenly yesterday’s news. What people feel towards a product or service can change influenced by news, consumer information or social upheaval. When this happens, repositioning your product can be a good idea. Repositioning is different from rebranding and can have some significant impacts on the growth of your products.

This article is going to explain what repositioning is, what it is not, and what you need to know to successfully reposition your product so you can hit different target markets, raise brand awareness, and grow your product’s worth.

What is Product Repositioning? 

Repositioning refers to changing your target market’s understanding or perception of your product. Your position includes what a customer thinks of your brand, your brand’s values and what it stands for. So repositioning involves changing these things.

You take your existing product and rework the narrative, change the look, update the design, shift the focus to a new target market. You’re not introducing a brand new product. Repositioning can create new value for your product in the eyes of the consumer.

As technology changes and customer needs and lifestyles change, repositioning becomes a must-do event for many companies and products.

One of the biggest repositioning examples is McDonalds. They used to be simply a burger and fries outlet, simple. But with growing concern for nutrition, and competition for convenience foods, McDonalds now serves salads, vegetarian options, and is famous for its McCafe, with barista made coffee and muffins. Did you know McCafe began in Melbourne, the heart of coffee culture in Australia, way back in 1993.

They also display dietary information for all their foods, trying to show they are conscious about the nutrition aspects of their burgers and salads. It’s a risky move to display how many kilojoules your burgers have, but this honesty has not slowed down sales at all. McDonalds french fries are still the best selling item on their menu. Deep fried potatoes and salt, the process hasn’t changed since McDonalds began, and even with all the nutritional facts, people still buy them.

Images from Business Insider & McDonalds.com

Product Repositioning vs Rebranding

While similar, repositioning and rebranding are different, with repositioning being more holistic.

Repositioning focuses on what is inside a brand, how customers perceive your brand when compared to your competitors. Repositioning often has a change of promise from your brand, if there is a personality change in your brand. When there is a seismic shift in your competitive landscape, you reposition your brand to take on this new world, to stay current and in the minds of consumers.

A fantastic example of repositioning due to market forces is Netflix, who began life as a DVD-by-mail service back in 1997. They repositioned their model from a per-dvd payment model to a monthly subscription model in 1999. Next, they launched an online streaming service in 2007, which began competing with Hulu and AppleTV streaming services. Towards 2013, streaming revenue increased, and DVD rental decreased. The change in consumer demand had them reposition to a totally streaming service, of not only licenced products from major studios, but they began creating their own content too, with ‘House of Cards’ the first original Netflix show produced. The want for on-demand and original content that people could stream whenever they wanted, largely led by Netflix, saw them reposition from a dvd-rental business, to a dominant, purely streaming service.

Rebranding typically is associated with how your brand looks, changing logo elements or the chief colour of your brand, fonts and icons. Rebranding works when a company no longer aligns with a certain principle or imagery. If they want to rebirth themselves into something new, they will rebrand themselves. It is a powerful move, a statement that the market will notice.

Arguably one of the biggest rebranding of recent times was Facebook, with all its associated apps, such as Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger, all being rebranded to Meta. This rebranding will help Meta “better encompass what it does, as it broadens reach beyond social media”. The rebranding will allow Meta to grow different arms of its business, including the Metaverse, which is a virtual reality based social platform. Ironically, due to the public shift towards A.I. over virtual reality, Meta may need to reposition itself in regards to the Metaverse.

The Process of Product Repositioning

Product repositioning is not something you undertake lightly. It needs the commitment of the whole company. You need to listen to your customers and what they’re saying about your brand and the market. You need to deliver on their expectations and convince them with your message. Always have these three concepts in mind when working through a repositioning of your product. 

Here is the 6-step process to follow when undertaking a product repositioning:

• Identify your existing product position. You need to fully analyse where your brand stands in the marketplace now. If you can identify where your product is missing the mark, what is not working with your product, then you can understand what needs to be worked on and how you can begin repositioning. Conduct a thorough SWOT analysis of your product. The opportunities can begin to help you identify where you can reposition to.
  
• Conduct market/audience research. Market research and target audience research both where you are now, and where you like to reposition, is vital. It is not wise to reposition your product into an area where you don’t have good resonance with a target audience. Find your new audience first and then strategise your repositioning to meet their needs.
  
• Define your new product position. For all the people who are involved in a product reposition, it is extremely helpful to define what your new product position is. This will help clarify the message to your target audience and help define your new USP.
  
• Create a product positioning strategy. It is no good trying to undertake great change without a plan or strategy. This helps everyone stay on the same page and know what the ultimate goal is. It helps drive the marketing message and the branding guidelines, it helps people understand the ways you will reach your new audience. 
  
• Craft your product identity. A reposition, a change, means a change of identity with your product. Have it align with your values, and have it resonate with your target audience. This has to help drive a good ROI, or else this big move could all be a costly mistake. Work with designers and marketers to understand what will make a successful new product identity. Believe it and champion it.
  
• Understand brand awareness through research and listening to feedback. Start with a SMART goal, and then measure and quantify the results. Define what success means for you in this repositioning. Gather sales and marketing data, speak to your customers, do some research to see if your repositioning worked. Don’t be afraid to adjust if your target audience gives you relevant feedback.

Reasons for Product Repositioning

There are a number of reasons why companies consider repositioning their products. All of these reasons are valid and each one requires a different strategy to reposition successfully.

• Change target audience – Either you want to target a new audience to broaden your appeal, or the audience you have now is waning, so you must find a new audience through necessity. You can reposition your product to focus on an older age group, or a different demographic. Nintendo Switch originally came out looking to grab the hearts of youngsters. Their advertising now is particularly family focused, with advertisements showing families playing together.
  
• Competitors. If your competitors are beginning to get a stranglehold on your niche, repositioning can help you find a new market and stay in business. You can reposition to a luxury brand or a discount product for families, depending on how your competitors market themselves.
  
• Negative reputation. Sometimes when products have been battered with some bad PR, coming back with a product reposition can help find new customers and help you redeem yourselves or seemingly start over from fresh.
  
• Updated product or service. The longer a company is around, the more likely their products and services will evolve. New materials, new ways to make your products, software updates, are all factors that can update your product proposition. Alternatively, updated regulations and rules could also have you repositioning yourself to align with the new way of being.
   
• Sales are dropping. A big trigger for repositioning is when you’re not making the same bank as you were in the last year. A product reposition for increased sales can include new packaging, new marketing messages and a new target audience.
  
• Strategy plan alterations. When a company changes its strategy for marketing, then products get repositioned to align with this new strategy. This could include a brand relaunch, or a brand extension where you add more products under the one brand umbrella. Think of Uber, originally an alternative passenger service, it now delivers food, or shopping, under the one brand.

• Shakeup in the industry. When new technology appears or something shakes up your industry, you need to reposition yourself to ride that wave and not be wiped out. Remember when ChatGTP burst onto the scene? So many products repositioned themselves to take advantage of this crazy powerful new tool – content creation farms, programmers and so many more, embraced this industry shakeup. Copywriters who might have seen their daily bread being stolen by A.I. repositioned themselves into A.I. educators, teaching people how to utilise this power to help their businesses grow.

Advantages of Product Repositioning

Proceeding with the long journey of repositioning yourself can be challenging, but it does come with a list of advantages.

• Increased market fit. Sometimes repositioning your product unlocks a better fit for your brand and your company. Where once you may have struggled, now you have a grand opportunity to grow your products and branding and grow your revenue.
  
• Meeting customer needs. By better aligning yourself with customer needs you can solve problems and highlight key benefits in a clearer way. This can help re-energize a product in the consumer’s mind and help connect to more consumers.
  
• Better business model. With a successful repositioning, you can build a better business model for your products. This can lead to increased profits and smarter ways to scale your business successfully.
  
• Better customer experience. One of the reasons you may undertake a repositioning is due to customer feedback. If you show that you’ve listened to your customers, this will bring positive feedback to you through a better customer experience.
  
• Potential media attention. This is free exposure and positive PR for your product and brand. A news story covering your repositioning, how you listened to customer feedback, or you’re relaunching for a new market, can drive a lot of business your way.

Disadvantages of Product Repositioning

As in life, there is not always a bright side. Going through a product reposition can have its drawbacks. But being aware of them now it can save you some trauma down the road – forewarned is forearmed.

• Cost. There are a variety of costs involved with repositioning. Investing in research and understanding the marketplace; advertising and generating buzz for a reposition;  cost to re-educate the market to your new position through advertising. As has been mentioned, repositioning is a big investment.
  
• Time. It can take longer to hit the right target audience with the right message, to help them understand who you are now. It can take more time than you bargained for until the revenue begins to start coming in. This long period of time can result in losses in sales.
  
• Is not well received. You always run the risk of your repositioning not being well received by the public. This could be due to confusion about what your repositioning is or why you chose to do it. Maybe,  despite all your research people just liked the old you.
  
• Brand risk. You could damage your brand. There can be a damage to your brand’s perceived quality and value, a damage to your integrity and message. This could require more time and money invested to ‘save’ your brand.
  

Examples of Successful Product Repositioning

There have been some exceptional product repositioning around the world. We’ve mentioned a few during this article, but we’d like to add a few more examples so you can see what we mean by repositioning . 

LifeStyles Condoms

LifeStyles are a mainstay of sexual health and wellness in Australia and New Zealand and have been around since 1905. They sell a range of condoms, lubricants and other personal products. Our research showed that while consumers trusted the LifeStyles brand, they felt the packaging was dated and particularly hetero-centred.

Our research also showed that the purchase of these sexual health products is not based on name, but rather colour. It is a choice driven by feeling and emotion.

We repositioned the packaging by introducing bright, fun colours so they really stood out on the shelves. We added art design of androgynous figures in pleasurable poses on the box art, so it no longer identified as hetero-normal. You could now imagine any gender enjoying themselves with Lifestyle condoms.

There is messaging on the box surrounding sustainability and plastic-free packaging, sexual health and a strong message about consent, printed right on the top of the box, to remind people that ‘yes’ is the biggest turn on of them all.

LifeStyles repositioned themselves to appeal to all generations, young and old, all sexualities, genders and body types. They have become incredibly inclusive with their products, which is how it should be. Sexual health and responsibility is something everyone needs to be aware of and practising.

Old Spice 

This used to be an aftershave that was associated with older men. Grandpa would have a bottle of Old Spice in the medicine cabinet. It was a traditional brand with a declining target audience. The marketing was all about sailing on the wild oceans and the scent of the sea. A very upper class, wealthy demographic, and out of touch with the market.

In 2010 they repositioned themselves. The message was now targeting female consumers who wanted their men to smell like men, and not like ‘lady scented body washes’. It used humour and some very clever advertising to reach a new audience. It introduced a sexy, ideal man in the form of Isaiah Amir Mustafa. The first commercial, launched on YouTube, not television, was titled “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like“, and the very first line in this ad is- “hello ladies”. This ad went viral, with millions of views. It spawned a raft of follow-on commercials, and a famous twitter campaign where the writing team, and Isaiah, were live on Twitter, responding to requests for messages. 

This repositioning refreshed Old Spice’s target audience, boosted sales (27% in just six months) and reinvigorated their marketing campaign. They were suddenly cool again. This repositioning has taken root, and their marketing campaign has continued in the humorous vein Isaiah started.

Product repositioning can be a very successful way to rejuvenate your brand. It can work because rather than a total rebrand, you focus wholly on how your product is perceived, is placed, and you work to make that better.

We’ve gone through what repositioning is, how it works and how you can decide if a product reposition is right for you. If you believe you’re in need of a product reposition, let’s make it happen today.