Brand Positioning Research for a Building Materials Manufacturer: Where do We Stand?

Our client, a global manufacturer of residential and commercial building products, wanted a better understanding of the United States market for their products, and how their brand was positioned.

In order to understand how our client’s brand is positioned within the market, it is first necessary to describe the market. Therefore, the project objectives were to:

• Describe the competitive environment in the U.S. for residential and commercial building products.
• Identify the key product attributes for contractors in selecting building materials for residential and commercial products.
• Measure the relative importance of those attributes in the purchase decision for building products.
• Evaluate our client’s overall position with regard to competitor.

An online survey was conducted with a nationally representative list of contractors from the proprietary myCLEARopinion panel and subscribers to a BNP Media trade publication. We also sent the survey to a list of contacts developed by the client. Of these, the qualified respondents only included individuals whose projects included materials in similar product categories to our client at least half the time, and who had a minimum number of project per year, to ensure that they had sufficient recent experience to participate meaningfully in the survey. Each qualified respondent completing the survey received an incentive to encourage their participation.

• Our client lags the market leaders, but is in a solid second tier market position, especially in the Southern U.S., where brand awareness is good. Their position in the Northeast and Midwest is much weaker, and brand awareness in these markets must be increased.
• Our client’s strengths include price competitiveness, and their manufacturer rebate program, which competes well with national leaders’ programs.
• Weaknesses for our client include low awareness and, hence, low trial of the products. Relationships between our clients’ sales reps and prospects must be improved in order to increase awareness and encourage trial and usage of the products.
• Bottom line: Improvements are needed in our client’s product line, product availability, and product quality in order to compete more effectively in the marketplace. Without these improvements, simply increasing awareness will not be effective to improving brand perceptions.