Always Low Prices

'Always Low Prices' - does it ring a bell? I am sure most of them would get it right, Wal-Mart's iconic tagline. Volumes have been written on Wal-Mart. More or less Wal-Mart seems to have been successful with this positioning in the market. Would it be possible for Wal-Mart to trade up? I mean introduce a new line of merchandise, may be luxury line of clothes or accessories. Is it suicidal for a succesful brand to change its frame of reference in the minds of the customers?

To answer this, one needs to undersatnd brand positioning. Brand positioning is the place a brand occupies in the minds of the customers. Usually on two criteria, say, technology-price, availabilty-quality, etc. Brand managers need to be cautious at the nascent stages of branding to position the brand right. Choose a position which is unexplored. Moov is a classic example of getting its positioning right in the very beginning of its launch. A position which remains unshaken till today. Amrutanjan -for headaches, Zandu Balm for pains and cold and Iodex for ooh, aah, ouch. Nobody thought of the consumer's back. And then came Moov. It targeted women -the category that complains the most of back aches. the positioning worked. Moov continues its piggy ride on the consumer's back and the mind too.

What if positioning fails? Simple, reposition. Now this is the nightmare for brand managers. to make customers think differently about the brand. However there have been successful brand repositioning too. Remmeber Nestle's Milkmaid. It entered the market by claiming to be an alternative for milk, specially for tea and coffee consumption. Very soon Nestle realised that its Milkmaid is used more as an ingredient to make desserts. Nestle repositioned the brand. And Milkmaid, till date does not have a strong rival.

So coming back to where we began, can Wal-Mart reposition itself as a premium brand?