For products that bear outdated image, face market saturation or essentially need a breakthrough, re-positioning provides immense opportunity to re-establish the product.

 

 

BMW-Mini example 

The Mini was originally designed by Sir Alec Issigonis and launched in 1959. At the time there were few other economical cars.The car was designed to seat four people, but be as small, practical, easy to park and economical as possible. The car was priced inexpensively at £496. In the period of 1970-1979 the Mini’s success began to suffer seriously, and this was not helped by the ending of production of the Cooper model in 1971. In 1980 the British Leyland Motor Corporation changed the Mini’s name to the Austin Mini and in 1988 the company was renamed the Rover Group, thus the Mini became the Rover Mini. Sales of the Mini continued to suffer throughout the 1980s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994 BMW acquired the Rover group, though they later sold off much of the group, BMW kept the Mini. In 2000 the Mini was completely withdrawn from production (after producing 5,400,000 cars) and the new Mini Cooper (designed and manufactured by BMW) was launched in 2001. A new Mini and Mini Cooper (designed and manufactured by BMW) were launched in 2001. It has been a very successful project with sales growing from 25,000 units in 2001 to over 200,000 units in 2006 (Arlidge, 2006).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The functional elements of a brand can remain unchanged while the emotional elements of the brand can be significantly repositioned in the eyes of the consumer.

The framework also builds on the traditional perspective of positioning, which examines how the product will be perceived in relation to other competitive offerings, by examining how the product will be perceived relative to the original/previous product’s positioning in the mind of the consumer. This was particularly the case with the Mini.