What factors contributes to Brand repositioning?

Brand repositioning is required because of several reasons:

• When new offerings flood the market, the superiority of the established brand has to be re-emphasised
• The established brands may not be able to offer either the same features or the variants that are being offered by the new brands . Hence, there is a need for them to reposition themselves in a timely manner, relying more on the consumer goodwill they enjoy or by exploring ways to appeal to the consumers
• When a contemporary image is required in some categories because of changing psychographics
• When brands desire to change their target segment (rarely)
• When brands want to communicate improved offerings
• When motivation to buy products in the category is low

Agree with Jayant...brand repositioning means rebirth of any brand for a particular product...relenshing of the old technology or concept by innovative solution...

Things are like that

" If we want to get going, get rid of some old stuff, literally and metaphorically"

Yes it is. But it kust consolidates what I have tried to explain. Repositioning to make up lost markey keeping current trends in mind. Philips is a global giant that people trust.

With the advent of brands like Videocon there is definitely competition and so a brand like Philips has to use survival strategy and repositioning is apparently one of it. They have a product coterie already so expanding that doesnt make sense but to reposition and SELL!! 

It is a combination of many factors that leads a brand to reposition itself. But the main factors would be :

1) Operating environment - there could be changes in the environment brought about by change in laws of the land etc. like ITC's shift towards FMCG and apparels since tobacco industry is being hanuted world over due to its negative factors.

2) Competition - Either you keep making the loudest noise or improve your service deliverables a notch higher to that of your competition. In both cases it calls for substantial resource allocation. So the simplest thing instead would be to reposition yourself. There doesnt seem to be much of a dent in Airtells marketshare despite the tough competition from Vodafone and our own BSNL.

3) Brand positioning - Holds good for a lot of old world brands that have been built on a sound proposition that was relevant in those days but look weak in modern times. Like videocons change in positioning from a desi brand to that of an international one.

I would also like to add one more point to the example pointed out by Jayant - Philips. Philips proposition was that of an old world brand and also it was losing a lot of ground to its better equipped korean and chinese competition in the electronics segment And hence it has decided to not just focus on its core areas but mover over to a wider diaspora covering healthcare, electronics, BPO services, lighting etc. which resulted in its new positioning.

I agree with both Jayant and Ujjval. its a combination of all these factors metioned. ultimately, its about consumer's purchasing power and taste that will decide where to position what.

Please correct the above, strategies for states as 1)Introduction, prollieferation, support 2)control factory 3) growth and 4)turaround strategic. The fourth one is the turnaround state where the products are reposition for extending life.

Products go through  metamorphic states called "life cycle", which are introductory state, growth state, decline state and stagnation state. In the introductory state companies management do their business certain ways when the product is being just brought into the market. Company actions make it grow and the sales increase. Then it declines due to lot of factors, like competitors entering, imitations, technologhy change etc; etc; and then the decline stage is reached. At the decline stage some companies would like to see their product don't go out of circulation and do certain activities like "rebranding" and "remodeling" to keep the life cycle extended. 

Companies follow strategies called 1)introduction strategies 2) prolieferation and support strategies 3)  control and factory strategies and 4) pure strategies. This fourht one includes life cycle extension which is like adding more features to the product, controling the logistics, changing components and materials, look etc;

In India we see this in the Ambassador cars and the Mahindra Willis jeeps. Willis jeeps are now called Scorpio and Xylo. Ambassador has Mistsubishi engines, floor shifts and better mileage.