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Today, companies compete in markets that are fragmented and crowded with offerings, where even strong brands face difficulties in creating sufficient differential advantages over their competitors ([19] Clancy and Trout, 2002). To overcome this problem, marketing managers and advertising executives seek to establish appropriate brand associations in the mind of consumers to differentiate the brand from competitors ([52] Keller and Lehmann, 2006) - they do this by employing brand positioning. Brand positioning "is the act of designing the company's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The end result of positioning is the successful creation of a customer-focused value proposition, a cogent reason why the target market should buy the product" ([56] Kotler, 2003, p. 308). In general, a well-positioned brand should appeal to the particular needs of a customer segment because a differential advantage/value proposition is created ([50] Keller, 1993; [95] Wind, 1982), since consumers' needs are more exactly satisfied ([23] Day, 1984). Indeed, according to the literature, positioning is expected to shape the preferences of consumers and lead to high consumer loyalty, consumer-derived brand equity, and willingness to search for the brand (e.g. [48] Kalra and Goodstein, 1998; [51] Keller, 2003; [81] Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007). Thus, the decision of selecting the most effective positioning strategy constitutes a main challenge for marketers since it is central to consumers' perceptions and choice ([3] Aaker and Shansby, 1982; [73] Pham and Muthukrishnan, 2002). If positioning is done effectively it has the potential to build powerful brands; however, if done incorrectly, it can also result in disaster (see, for example, [42] Haig, 2005; [79] Ries and Trout, 1986).
Despite the importance of brand positioning, however, limited empirical attention has been paid to the question whether the use of certain positioning strategies (e.g. benefit-based positioning) results in more superiorly positioned brands than the application of other strategies (e.g. user-based positioning) ([52] Keller and Lehmann, 2006; [73] Pham and Muthukrishnan, 2002). The purpose of the current study is to close this gap and compare the effectiveness of prototypical positioning strategies of real brands from a consumer perspective and thus provide brand managers and advertising professionals with empirically-based insights for making sound positioning decisions. We conceptualize positioning effectiveness as a multidimensional...