The Homa Files

How can you reposition your own brand when the entire product category is seen as a commodity? Here are five successful strategies:

• Identify. Ordinary bananas became better bananas when a small Chiquita label was added to the fruit. Dole did the same for pineapple, and Foxy did the same for lettuce. Of course, you then have to communicate why people should look for these labels.
• Personify. The Green Giant character became the difference in a family of vegetables in many forms. Frank Perdue became the tough man behind the tender chicken
• Create a new generic. Tyson wanted to sell miniature chickens, which doesn’t sound very appealing. So it introduced Cornish game hens.
• Change the name. Sometimes your original name works against you. For example, no one wanted to eat a Chinese gooseberry until the name was changed to kiwi fruit
• Reposition the category. Sales of pork increased when its producers repositioned it as “the other white meat.”

Source:  Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change, and Crisis by Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin, 2010

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