Symbolic and functional positioning of brands

Subodh Bhat
Srinivas K. Reddy
Journal of Consumer Marketing Vol. 15 No. 1 1998

This article tries to understand whether symbolism and functionality are two distinct concepts or are two ends of one brand concept continuum.
Brand’s image in its long-term success necessitates having a framework for strategically managing the image over long term. Until Park in 1986 proposed BCM (brand concept management), brand managers had have very little direction for setting a conceptual framework. BCM proposes that every brand image should be based on a brand concept or a brand specific meaning. BCM defines brands as functional and symbolic. Functional brands satisfy practical and immediate needs, whereas symbolic brands satisfy needs as self-expression, prestige. Symbolic brands practical usage is incidental.
There is no defined measure or scale to distinguish brand types. This article also summarizes the aims and results of a survey that tried to construct a method for measuring brand positioning.
Authors prepared a survey with five product categories. Each category had two brands, with one accepted as symbolic and other as functional. Sample of survey was graduate students. They used three types of questionnaires; use of a brand to express themselves, characteristics of brands, and evaluations of users of brands.
Traditionally, human motivation for consumption behavior has a simple typology. It suggests two distinct schools of thought; rational school or “economic man” and the emotional or hedonic school. First one accepts consumers are rational and try to maximize their utility. On the other hand, second one suggests individuals use personal or subjective criteria such as taste, pride, desire for adventure, desire for expressing themselves in their consumption decisions.
Park argued that brands should be positioned to appeal either one of these types, but not both.
Results of the survey showed that symbolic construction might be divided into two segments. For some brands consumers focused on the prestige of the brand, for some brands expressing the user’s personality.
Furthermore functional brands scored high on the functional scale, while symbolic brands tended to have high ratings on the prestige and personality scales. Only in sports shoes category there were not significant differences between Nike and Converse. The assumption was “Nike is a symbolic brand, Converse is a functional brand. These observations suggested that it is possible to have brands that have both functional and symbolic meanings to consumers.
A few notes:
In 1998 Converse was not a symbolic brand, company was producing economic shoes, but brand always had a symbolic value history with “All Stars” model. On the other hand, Nike was an innovative brand and had a large market share, but it was never a very symbolic brand. It is a possibility that brands chosen in sports shoes category were not representative brands. Considering Converse’s new brand position as a symbolic brand during mid 2000s, Nike can be considered as a functional brand. Article considers sports shoes category in this survey had exceptional results, but may be brands were not very good.

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