Once you get over the AHA moment of the new idea for a product you just got, the question you should ask yourself is how you are going to position it. This is valid also for old products that need a makeover and boost in sales.

New products usually come in:

• A new form but with similar function as other alternatives (e.g. new bottle shape for a hair product)
• A known form with new functions (e.g. car with GPS)
• New form and functions combined (e.g. iPhone)

Product positioning often takes two forms: functional or experiential. Although, you can find a little bit of both in many ads, there is usually a focus on one of them.

In functional positioning, utilitarian benefits take the front seat by focusing on product attributes, how it works, how helpful it is and what needs it meets. An example is the 2011 ad for Boyardee Ravioli below. It uses its long tradition and beginnings to emphasize quality ingredients and non-preservatives as its main product attributes.

Experiential positioning, on the other hand, is about hedonic benefits, how they product makes you feel. A stellar example is the recent years’ Old Spice commercials telling women how they would feel if their men were to use Old Spice body wash: “We're not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it.”

Recent research (Noseworthy & Trudell, Journal of Marketing Research, Dec. 2011, Vol 48, p. 1008), shows that new products that are moderately incongruent with what consumer expect from it, but positioned with a utilitarian angle like in the Boyardee’s ads, tend to receive more favorable evaluations than typical, congruent products or highly incongruent products. However, in experiential positioning, this seems to work in the other direction. In this study, congruent products were more likely to receive favorable evaluations than products that came in an atypical form.

This research, validated across 5 different product categories, found that “when a product is positioned on functional dimensions, moderately incongruent form causes consumers to perceive more hedonic benefits, whereas when a product is positioned on experiential dimensions, moderately incongruent form causes consumers to perceive less utilitarian benefits.”

These results suggests that consumers put more value on hedonic benefits once they understand what the product does, which seems logic, but not always considered. Have you ever seen a commercial and wonder what is it for? Check the G commercial created when Gatorade did a brand makeover a couple of years ago and left consumers scratching their heads.

Before you decide on how to position your product, I suggest doing research to understand:

• Prior knowledge about the brand, product or product category
• User behavior
• Awareness and usage of competing alternatives
• Perceived risks
• Price perceptions and willingness to pay

With this knowledge, you can create both functional and experiential positioning versions and test them before you decide which version to go with. One test may not be enough. Test a version, refine it based on the research results and test again until you feel confident that the positioning chosen is going to advance your product.