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This paper aims to empirically investigate the role of product positioning in the launch of food and drink products using a large dataset of new product development by food companies in Australia (AU) and New Zealand (NZ). As such, positioning through credence attribute claims can be associated with product launch strategies, including brand-new products, expansion of product ranges, new packaging and relaunch, as a response to market demand.

Text analysis was used to investigate the descriptions of food claims using Structured Query Language, providing a word list of food claims and further filtered and categorised into groups of claims. Multinomial regression models were then employed to analyse the association between product launch strategies and food claims adopted by firms.

The results of this paper provide evidence that positioning via food claims play an important role in product launch strategies in both AU and NZ. Types of food claims matter differently to firms' product launch decisions in the two markets. The “green” and “ethical” attributes are found to be associated with new launches in NZ but not in AU. Claims that are seen as most important for consumers are more likely to be engendered for the more costly launch approach.

This study is amongst the first studies that addresses the role of positioning in product launch strategies of food companies. The results and findings provide insights into the different prevailing credence attributes from the firm side and help policymakers to regulate the delivery of information about credence attributes to consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to review state-of-the-art literature on product/brand positioning to re-examine the positioning concept and developing a more comprehensive definition from a theoretical viewpoint.

A systematic review of positioning was conducted. The review conformed to a rigorous set of core principles: it was systematic (organized according to a method designed to address the review questions), transparent (explicitly stated), reproducible and updatable and synthesized (summarized the evidence relating to the review question).

The literature review reveals that there is lack of coherent definition for positioning, and there is no mutual agreement among marketing scholars and practitioners about the exact meaning of the concept. Therefore, comprehensive definition of positioning encompassing the five underlying positioning perspectives (competition; empty slot/mind; consumers’ perception, differentiation and competitive advantage) is suggested.

This paper will be useful for academicians to analyze the current nature of academic research in this area and will provide an added advantage to managers to design and implement positioning strategies for their product/brands that will allow their organizations to gain competitive advantage. This study acknowledges limitations with respect to its exclusive search criteria, which might affect its generalizability.

Position and positioning is of relevance in society in broad terms, e.g. in sports, politics and culture. Positioning strategy is discussed and implemented in different industries (business-to-business and consumer), for all kinds of brands (including, for instance, corporate brands) and for “brands” in the very widest sense (such as places or people).

This is the first systematic review of positioning that provides a detailed understanding of the current state of positioning research on a single platform and also draws a comprehensive positioning conceptualization.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the location of sport brands in sport consumers’ minds using a perceptual map of multiple positions; and examine whether there is congruence between the sport brands’ purported images and the targeted consumers’ perception of the brands’ images.

A mixed method was used. Four steps of data collections (i.e. face-to-face, focus group interviews, and questionnaires) and analyses (i.e. content analysis, MDS analysis, PROXSCAL analysis, multiple regressions analysis, frequency analysis, and congruence score) were performed.

Four positioning typologies (i.e. great quality equipment, equipment for professionals, innovation, and tradition) were identified; each brand’s positions in consumers’ minds were distinctly portrayed in the perceptual map; and the congruence between intended and perceived positions was found in two brands – Titleist and Ping – implying they established a high position-congruity and providing evidence of positioning effectiveness.

The findings will aid practitioners and scholars in positioning and its effectiveness: the results provide information for managers to select, implement, and manage effective positioning strategies and the study provides initial evidence about whether companies and their brands are well-positioned in the sport consumer’s perception.

The authors attempt to examine how consumers perceive brands and how effectively brand positions are portrayed in consumers’ minds. The effectiveness and competitiveness of positioning strategies were examined via a perceptional map.

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a comparative examination of the media types used in projecting positioning strategies of service brands, and to establish whether there is evidence of congruence/fit between managerial decisions, adopted communications and target audience perceptions of positioning strategies of the brands. The relative congruence among intended, conveyed and perceived brand positions is an important research task. Also, how to ensure such synergy and minimize incongruence is an important research question both to theory and to practice.

Following extensive review of the literature, triangulation research method (face-to-face long interviews, survey and content analysis) characterized this study.

The findings reveal that overall parity between the three media (TV; newspaper; and pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and billboards) is evident in terms of failure to translate managerial decisions into corresponding positioning messages. The findings also show that fit or congruence between managerial decision and communicated message fails to deliver the desired message in 19 per cent of the observations. Further 23 per cent of the adopted strategies are neither present in communications nor perceived by the target audience. Irrespective of a positioning strategy being adopted or not, there is total congruence/fit between messages in newspapers and target audience’s perceptions, while the corresponding results for TV and other media are moderate. Moreover, channels for positioning offerings can be multifaceted and they do not strictly have to occur via communications. Only “brand name” positioning strategy demonstrates total fit, while “top of the range” shows high frequency of failure to translate managerial decisions into appropriate communication messages.

This paper offers useful insights into the overall differences between the three media (TV; newspaper; and pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and billboards) in the positioning of service brands. The study is a step forward in the diagnosis of the congruence/fit or coherence in the positioning activities between managers, firm practices and consumers’ perceptions. Without this knowledge, executives may encounter difficulties and challenges in their efforts at establishing, maintaining or reframing market “positions” for their offerings.

In this article focused upon the UK context, the authors sought to better understand how political elites shaped public debate to reinforce rather than challenge the hostile policy environment for those seeking asylum.

The authors undertook a political claims analysis (Koopmans and Statham, 1999) focussing on a venue that has been pivotal in shaping the discourse around asylum issues in the UK, namely the print media. This work adopts a theoretical frame informed by the work of Stuart Hall to uncover the extent to which debates on asylum during the key period of the refugee emergency in Europe were shaped by political elites.

The study’s findings reveal the extent to which political elites acted as “primary definers” of the “crisis” and utilised that position to cast those arriving in Europe as a threat to be managed.

This research offers a contemporary worked example of political claims analysis in a topical subject area that colleagues across disciplines and contexts may find informative for their own research agendas.

There is an increasing need for a better understanding of healthcare service marketing in social media. This paper aims to examine Under the framework of positioning theory, popular Instagram posts related to #plasticsurgery and their accounts were analyzed and the relationships between the posts’ attributes and the number of user comments and likes were examined.

A total of 272 posts associated with #plasticsurgery and their account profiles were analyzed.

Plastic surgery procedures were positioned on Instagram primarily by doctors and celebrity patients who were motivated by self-promotion. Doctors often omitted their medical credential information from their account profile and posts while featuring their vanity photos, emojis and consultation solicitations. They showed patients as the objects of surgery. On the other hand, patients positioned themselves as individuals with the agency by showing their faces rather than focusing on their body parts. Instagram users responded better to the doctors who positioned themselves more as business owners than medical professionals by soliciting consultations, offering discounts, displaying surgery photos and using emojis. In responding to patient posts, Instagram users liked under-dressed images more than fully clothed images and commented more on before-and-after photos than others.

In Instagram, doctors positioned themselves as self-interested providers of plastic surgery services, whereas patients positioned themselves as active consumers. Medical professionals’ social media activities should be more closely monitored to protect patient safety and the trust between patients and doctors.

This study shed light on how doctors and patients position themselves on social media and how they are received by social media users in the context of #plasticsurgery on Instagram.

This study is a radical interactionist analysis of family conflict. Drawing on both a negotiated order perspective and Athen's theory of complex dominative encounters, this study analyzes the role that domination plays in conflicts among intimates. As the family engages in repeated conflicts over roles, the family also engages in negotiations over the family order, what role each party should play, interpretations of past events, and plans for the future. These conflicts take place against a backdrop of patriarchy that asymmetrically distributes power in the family to determine the family order. The data from this study come from a content analysis of mothers with substance use problems as depicted in the reality television show Intervention. The conflicts in these families reveal that these families develop a grinding family order in which families engaged in repeated conflict but also continued to operate as and identify as a family. These conflicts are shaped by and reinforce patriarchal expectations that mothers are central to family operation. The intervention at the end of each episode offered an opportunity for the family to engage in a concerted campaign to try to force the mother into treatment and reestablish the family order.

This paper aims to answer the following question: How can a discursive approach to how music fans construct loyalty in a digital context contribute to a theoretical understanding of brand loyalty?

Drawing on insights from theories of brand loyalty and fandom, this interpretive inquiry makes use of data from an online forum dedicated to the rock music band, U2, and interviews with forum members. A combination of online ethnography and discourse analysis are used.

The analysis shows that music fans mobilise particular discursive resources in constructing loyalty in the digital context, specifically length of time spent as a fan, obsession and the opposition of obligation and choice. These discursive resources reflect a grounded account of an experientially rooted brand loyalty that extends beyond attitudinal and behavioural loyalty and which is particularly salient in music consumption.

This is a single case study, but as a rich and vibrant online community, it provides fruitful insights into the discursive construction of loyalty. The processes of negotiation, accommodation and conflict, engaged in through online discourse, are important in laying bare the preferences, value systems and meanings that frame the experiences of loyal consumers.

This socially constructed view of loyalty facilitates a more sensitive and nuanced application of brand loyalty, with implications for segmentation and targeting activities. It provides a possible basis through which precise insights can be gained into the meanings and practices of loyal fans and consumers.

Examining loyalty through the lens of online music fandom enables a discursive understanding of consumers’ experience of brand loyalty. It shows how online engagement with other consumers of a brand facilitates a deep engagement with the notion of loyalty.

Simon’s story is presented here; it tells of his change from his familiar world as a claims manager to an ambiguous world of consultants and projects. Simon recounts a kaleidoscope of emotions as his life is thrown into turmoil. In career terms it could be argued that Simon started and finished as a claims manager and therefore little in fact changed during the story. This would miss the fundamental changes in Simon from a motivated, confident and capable manager to timid and confused employee. Internally Simon was changed, externally no one noticed. A causal network is used to trace the patterns of connection through Simon’s narrative. This reveals his way of making sense of his experiences and allows his ontology of management and career to be explored. This leads on to a discussion of management implications.

The purpose of this conceptual chapter is to analyze the current state of the astructural bias in symbolic interactionism as it relates to three inter-related processes over time: (1) the formalization of critiques of symbolic interactionism as ahistorical, astructural, and acritical perspectives; (2) an ahistorical understanding of early expressions of the disjuncture between symbolic interactionism and more widely accepted forms of sociological theorizing; and (3) persistent and widespread inattentiveness to past and present evidence-based arguments that address the argument regarding symbolic interactionism as an astructural, ahistorical, and acritical sociological perspective. The argument frames the historical development of the astructural bias concept in an historically and socially conditioned way, from its emergence through its rejection and ultimately including conclusions about contemporary state of the astructural bias as evidenced in the symbolic interactionist literatures of the last couple of decades. The analysis and argument concludes that the contemporary result of these intertwined historical and social conditioning processes is that the astructural bias myth has been made real in practice, and that the reification of the myth of an astructural bias has had the ruinous effect of virtually eradicating a vital tradition in the interactionist perspective which extends back to the earliest formulations of the perspective. As a result, a handful of suggestions that serve to aid in reclaiming the unorthodox structuralism of symbolic interactionism and the related interactionist study of social organization are provided in the conclusion.