Positioning of brands and analysis of positioning statement

Positioning is about the position a brand occupies in a market in the minds of consumers. Strong brands have a clear, often unique position in the target market.

Positioning can be achieved through several means, including brand name, image, service standards, product guarantees, packaging and the way in which it is delivered. In fact, successful positioning usually requires a combination of these things.

Although there are different definitions of Positioning, probably the most common is: identifying a market niche for a brand, product or service utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (i.e. price, promotion, distribution, packaging, and competition).

Also positioning is defined as the way by which the marketers create impression in the customers mind.

Analysis of the positioning

Brand name

The position in which Elephant House finds itself is different. According to Brand Finance’s global benchmarking, its brand value contributes almost 70 per cent of the total business value of Ceylon Cold Stores. In case where the brand is the most dominant asset in a business, it has a very high ‘Brand Power’ rating. This indicates that the asset has a high degree of resilience and will continue to provide its owner with a stable stream of earnings in the future, if it is managed effectively.

Elephant House brand is well-established brand in Sri Lanka with a long history and the trust of consumers. For example, Orange Barley is so popular with local consumers that carbonated drinks were generally referred to as barley, especially in the country’s rural areas. In some other countries, people are known to put in mind to carbonated drinks as sodas. As a brand Elephant House brand has a heritage value, with trust in them being ingrained in local consumers. Elephant House aims to capitalize on these brand values and build on them by maintaining the quality of its products.

The foundation for Sri Lanka’s one of most valuable brand, Elephant House, is perceived as tasty, trustworthy and of the highest quality. The brand’s continuing quest is to maintain its values and retain the trust of its consumers, won over many decades. Innovation, continuous responsiveness to consumer needs and strong supply-chain management has been the triune pillars of its sustained success.

Image

For some people, there’s still nothing like a good old Elephant Orange Barley bottle to quench their thirst on a hot afternoon. The local ‘Aliya Beema’ brand still maintains a loyal following. Established in 1866, the Elephant House soft drink range today has something to offer everyone and enliven every moment.

Whether it is its distinct raspberry flavored Elephant Necto or Orange Barley to strike a more nostalgic note, Ceylon Cold Stores Ltd caters to a diversified market. Ginger Beer and Soda are the oldest in the range – over 100 years – followed by Orange Barley, more than 75 years old.

But the battle to survive the onslaught of competition posed by big-pocketed multinational companies has not been an easy one for this age-old local brand.

The Elephant House brand name has always been associated with trusted quality and value for money, and they have maintained that image among their consumers.

Service standards

To strive towards excellence in customer service, they continued to keep a finger on the pulse of their consumers through concerted market research on changes to taste, flavor and lifestyles and identified the need for product innovation to be geared towards healthier lifestyles and shrinking disposable income. Noting the success of the diet EGB and low calorie ice cream, the Ceylon Cold Stores PLC Research and Development Team continued to explore more sugar free products. The extremely successful ‘buddy’ range of beverages in small sizes was also a result of addressing consumer expectations. In keeping with their commitment to integrity, all Elephant House products continued to be promoted in an ethical and responsible manner. In addition to ensuring that they do not sponsor any illegal events or those that are socially or environmentally harmful, all their promotional campaigns are filtered through a process managed by the John Keells Holdings (JKH) Group CSR Committee to ensure that they do not convey any socially harmful messages.

Product guarantees

“Our passion is to deliver pleasure and nutrition throughout peoples lives, through exciting and superior products, whenever and wherever they choose to eat and drink”

Over the years, they have never lost sight of one of the key fundamentals that sustain their business-the need to maintain brand loyalty among consumers by continuing to deliver pleasure and nutrition while maintaining stringent quality.

To do this, they continued to follow Good Hygiene Practices (GHP); Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), conformed to industry norms in their labeling practices – including details of nutritional information; implemented 5S, Kaizen, Quality Circles and Six Sigma; and ensured their production processes operated under controlled conditions that met SLS standards. In recognition of their efforts, they were not only accredited with ISO 22000 quality certification but their consumers nominated Cream Soda as the most popular beverage for the 3rd consecutive year, placing their trust in them over other international beverages. This indicates the confidence placed by consumers in them superior products.

They do not limit their quality controls to merely their production process but extend it towards the first point of contact between their consumers and the Elephant House brands by collecting samples of all their products offered on the retail shelves on a quarterly basis and sampling them for any quality deficiencies. They go one step further before distributing their pasteurized milk and iced-coffee, where the daily batch of dairy products – though tested intensely at the production premises at Maskeliya, is also submitted to a second quality check in Colombo before distribution.

Awards and accreditation

• Due to our continuous efforts at improving efficiencies and commitment to quality, we achieved ISO 22000 certification during the year.

• Elephant House Cream Soda bagged the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing and Nielsen People’s Award for 2008 as the Most Popular Beverage for the 3rd consecutive year.

• Apple Soda, which took the market by storm, was recognized with a Bronze for the Most Innovative New Entrant for the year by Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM).

• In recognition of its efforts to penetrate global markets, the Company was once again awarded the Silver under the Agriculture Value Added sector by the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka.

• For the second consecutive year, the Company’s Annual Report 2007-08 received the Gold Award in the Food and Beverages Sector, presented by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka Annual.

Packaging and Delivering

Raw materials are received from local as well as international suppliers and then those are sending to processing section after quality inspection. Finished products are sent to finely cold storage after giving assurance for quality. From Finely cold stores, products are distributed to local markets, and super markets as well as international markets. Product complaints are come back to the factory in an opposite way to product flow. Customer complaint sheets are distributed to shop keepers and they collect complaint. Monthly evaluations and remedial actions are under taken by the department of quality assurance.

Repositioning

Repositioning occurs when a brand tries to change its market position to reflect a change in consumer’s tastes. This is often required when a brand has become tired, perhaps because its original market has matured or has gone into decline.

Elephant House announced the completion of its corporate rebranding efforts. The changes are effective immediately, and, while the company will continue to operate under the legal name Ceylon Cold Stores, all future business activity shall refer to the company as Elephant House. This is an incredibly dynamic time in their company’s history to launch Elephant House’s new corporate identity, which better represents the brand’s iconic status and aspirations going forward.

This move was backed by consumer research that complemented the Elephant House brand values. Elephant House’s positioning now reconnects the brand with it’s ‘goodness’ roots while it reaches out to a younger consumer demographic. Elephant House is backed by over 140 years of accomplishment. While there is great strength in the diversity of brands within their portfolio, ‘goodness’ is a strong part of their legacy and also a powerful common denominator for the brand.