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Empty container repositioning is an important issue in the liner shipping industry. Generally stated, two groups of mathematical models have been proposed to tackle this issue. The first group aims to derive time‐dependent origin‐destination matrices that specify the number of empty containers to be repositioned at a decision epoch; the second group aims to develop effective state‐feedback control policies consisting of dynamic decision‐making rules. There is, however, a lack of research into the comparison of these two groups, especially with regard to realistic cases subject to uncertainties. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the performances of some typical repositioning policies from these two groups and to shed light on their relative merits and suitability in various realistic scenarios.

Based on a literature review, the paper classifies the current empty container repositioning policies into two categories: origin‐destination (OD) based solutions and state‐based dynamic rules. Typical policies are selected from these two categories and then evaluated using a simulation tool. A range of scenarios are designed based on realistic cases considering the stochastic and dynamic nature of liner services. A comprehensive set of simulation experiments are conducted and analysed; and the relative merits and suitability of the repositioning policies are identified.

Through a carefully designed comparative study, several research findings are obtained with regard to how the performances of different types of empty container repositioning policies are affected by various factors such as structure of service route, uncertainty of daily demands, and parametric optimisation methods.

The study makes a good attempt to analyse the suitability of different empty container repositioning policies in different scenarios. This is an area that has lacked investigation. The research findings can help shipping companies and other relevant stakeholders better understand the relative merits of different empty container repositioning policies and better tackle the challenges in operating the container shipping system.

This chapter explains the impact containerisation has on the various partners of the global supply chain and the challenges companies encounter and the solutions they use in dealing with empty container repositioning.

The phenomenon of imbalanced container flows and its impact on shipping lines, shippers, container haulage companies, port development and the economy are presented. Special attention is given to explain the many solutions companies use to reduce the impact of empty container repositioning, hence tracing out the past research that led to these solutions and pointing to potentially new research directions in the future.

Because of the widespread use of containerisation and the imbalanced container flows that results from globalisation, empty container repositioning will be an ongoing issue for the maritime logistics industry. Many solutions are being used, but there is room for improvement and more research is needed.

Empty container repositioning is an important issue but has not been deemed as such in the literature. This chapter explains the reasons it is important and that its impact is not limited to shipping lines only but affects the whole supply chain.

Drawing on evidence from ten towns (across England, Wales and Northern Ireland) participating in the High Street UK 2020 (HSUK2020) project, the purpose of this paper is to reveal how local stakeholders involved in place management respond to high street decline through a strategy of repositioning.

This paper identifies the challenges faced by the towns considering repositioning, and highlights examples of good practice of relevance to the practitioners. First, it outlines the perspectives on repositioning from the academic research and theory, before drawing on evidence from across ten UK towns that participated in the HSUK2020 project, to reveal how repositioning involves more than just taking a snapshot profile of a place.

The research revealed major challenges faced by local stakeholders in clearly identifying and communicating their market position, in particular, the maintenance of up-to-date information on catchments was lacking at all the locations. Despite having local knowledge and some data, stakeholders still did not possess a clear (or shared) understanding of the identity or function of their towns. This evidence reflects the complexity of analysing and understanding repositioning and developing coherent strategies.

Knowledge exchange between stakeholders involved in place management can help inform the identification of new strategic objectives, appropriate interventions and project planning and delivery. Where resources are limited, particularly in smaller towns and settlements, the research demonstrates the significance of collecting and sharing data and analysis with other stakeholders, because this can generate positive outcomes for all.

By offering empirical evidence based on the experience of local practitioners, this paper provides valuable insight into how town centre stakeholders collect, interpret and analyse data, revealing the challenges, opportunities and practicalities involved in developing and implementing repositioning strategies.

Reality television is a dynamic, profit-making platform that occupies prime-time slots on the television almost all over the world. Despite its immense popularity and influence, it has received little attention in the extant literature and almost none in terms of its impact on celebrity repositioning. This study aims at examining the relationship between the film stars as brands and the impact of the platform of reality television in repositioning these celebrities in the Indian context.

Through extensive literature review and qualitative interviews, the paper expounds that reality television provides an opportunity to celebrities to successfully reposition themselves at crucial junctures in their career. The framework to study this repositioning has been adopted from the work of Chris Simms and Paul Trott (2007) who created it to study the brand repositioning of various consumer goods.

The literature establishes celebrities as brands. This study provides evidence that brand repositioning through reality television is possible for these celebrity brands. The symbolic and functional repositioning of these celebrities is presented through thematic content analysis.

The study provides a useful framework to understand celebrity brand repositioning through reality TV. It can also be replicated to understand the repositioning of a wide variety of celebrities other than film-stars such as sportspersons, social media influencers and politicians.

The paper contributes to the need of expanding the corpus of Indian reality television and explains how Indian celebrities reposition themselves through reality television.

In 1921, Alfred P. Sloan developed an extensive repositioning strategy that was instrumental to General Motors' success over the decades that followed. This paper aims to provide a review of the development and evolution of this strategy and how the later deviation from this strategy was responsible for the company's marketplace decline and eventual bankruptcy.

The paper reviews the historical 1921 repositioning strategy developed by Sloan and the specific models and price levels that were a part of this strategy. These price levels are then examined over the following decades to determine when and how this strategy was modified over time.

The findings indicate that although Sloan developed a brilliant strategy at the time of its inception, General Motors has over time deviated from its own historic and successful repositioning strategy. It is demonstrated that the deviation from the 1921 strategy has contributed to the decline in General Motors' market share and their bankruptcy in 2009. In addition, the 1921 strategy is compared to those of successful 21st century competition.

The research provides the reader with a historical review and analysis of the Sloan strategy and provides evidence that a historically successful marketing strategy can be applicable in other time periods for the company that developed it and for other competitors that make use of a similar strategy.

The past is important for various known and unknown reasons. This paper aims to reveal and justify unacknowledged reasons why, when and how managers should consider leveraging the pasts of previously successful but currently declining brands to restore their more desirable historical market positions.

This conceptual paper combines marketing and branding theory with historical branding examples, anecdotes and inductive inferences to develop and justify brand-pastness as a theoretically-grounded and managerially-actionable repositioning concept that could be applied to resurrect declining brands.

The emergent historically-grounded brand-pastness framework generates innovative insights that could be applied in the future. These insights explain when, why and how brand managers could apply brand-pastness to resurrect declining brands. The framework also facilitates the development of a brand-pastness-based research agenda. The agenda is driven by questions structured to address the nature, scope and potential applications of brand-pastness as a new concept and useful repositioning tool.

This paper’s recommendations are limited by their conceptual and inductive origins. However, a research agenda is developed to guide and structure future empirical investigations of the branding antecedents to and consequences of a prospective brand-pastness construct.

This paper introduces, conceptualizes and justifies the potential value of a historically-grounded concept called brand-pastness. The concept may prove beneficial when marketing managers use brand-pastness to reposition and resurrect declining brands by re-instilling targeted consumers’ historical perceptions of brands’ past superiority.

The learning objectives of this case include:

▪ Outline the brand repositioning approaches that Equity Bank used in its various stages of growth.

▪ Identify the impact of Equity’s brand repositioning in supporting its growth.

▪ Develop a brand repositioning framework for Equity bank as a fintech.

▪ Identify the theoretical frameworks that informed Equity’s brand repositioning during the various growth stages.

▪ Suggest a theoretical framework that would help Equity to reposition the new brand in the market.

In March 2020, the Government of Kenya declared a lockdown to slow down the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown of entire economic sectors put pressure on the adoption of technology to deliver services such as education, training and financial services. Banks had to innovate ways of supporting customers transactions with minimal physical and cash contact. Equity Bank had been implementing a digital banking strategy which had demonstrated successful adoption. Covid-19 accelerated the adoption and usage of Equity Bank’s digital banking by consumers. The bank found itself in a new territory competing fiercely with new and more agile fintechs. Consequently, Dr James Mwangi, the Group Managing Director and CEO of Equity Group, was contemplating the possibility of bringing forward the bank's strategic intention of repositioning as a fintech. He was convinced that such a move would bring massive success to the bank’s digital banking strategy, achieve enhanced efficiency, improve customer experience and attract a new segment of digital-savvy customers. But he needed to carry the Board, his management team and customers along in this repositioning strategy without sacrificing the gains made in the consumers' minds about Equity's brand as a bank.

This case can be taught to graduate-level students of marketing courses. It can also be taught to participants of executive education undertaking short courses in in business management and entrepreneurship.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This paper aims to adopt a consumer behaviour perspective and investigate the extent to which BMW has repositioned the new “Mini”. It builds on a previous paper that explored perceptions of the “Mini” brand.

The study adopted a two‐stage approach to data collection, consisting of 66 in‐depth interviews with a cross section of important stakeholders with high brand awareness and knowledge. The paper develops a conceptual framework and offers a novel way for firms to consider the effects of their repositioning strategies on consumers perceptions of a brand.

The findings reveal a substantial repositioning of the brand's functional appeal, moving away from the car's price as an appeal towards product build quality. Furthermore, the Mini's symbolic appeal, which is based on its fun and sporty image, has largely remained in place.

Firms need to recognise the importance of repositioning at both the symbolic and functional level.

The paper presents a novel conceptual framework for viewing repositioning strategies and presents evidence of repositioning at both the functional and symbolic level.

Empirical research demonstrates that category specialism is aligned with competitive success and that social actors indulging in perceptual violations of social codes are subjected to devaluations. Through category generalism, however, social actors may obtain access to diverse set of audience segments. This chapter investigates such a trade-off in the context of political ideologies – conceived here as composed of social codes and exposed to a discipline similar to that of market categories. A successful instance of repositioned identity is introduced and discussed: the case of the British Liberal Democrats Party during the post-WWII period. Particular attention is dedicated to the process of recombination of own and oppositional social codes. This strategy contributed to increase the audience attention received on each of the issues traditionally “owned” by the Liberal Democrats Party. Party level analyses suggest that the borrowed issues improved audience attention when they contributed to extend and clarify the ideological roots of the Liberal Party. The implications of this case study for current research on market categories are further discussed.

We investigate the dynamics of competitive repositioning of firms in the deregulated U.S. airline industry (1979–1995) in terms of a firm's target market, strategic posture, and resource endowment relative to other firms in the industry. We suggest that, despite strong inertia in competitive positions, the direction of repositioning responds to external and internal alignment considerations. For external alignment, we examined how firms changed their competitive positioning to mimic the positions of similar, successful firms, and to differentiate themselves when experiencing intense rivalry. For internal alignment, we examined how firms changed their position in each dimension to align with the other dimensions of positioning. This internal alignment led to convergent positioning moves for firms with similar resource endowments and strategic postures, and divergent moves for firms with similar target markets and strategic postures. The evidence suggests that repositioning moves in terms of target markets and resource endowments are more sensitive to external and internal alignment considerations, but that changes in strategic posture are subject to very high inertia and do not appear to respond well to alignment considerations.