that Thiele needs to communicate internally and externally, which customers should be in focus and see the brand as differentiated and relevant.
service and not price being the most important attribute, as price and promotion might be an attribute whose affect is more unconscious than others.
In regard to brand personality, we can conclude that Louis Nielsen is the only brand with a clear and consistent personality description. The other brands, especially Nyt Syn and Profil Optik, are characterized with slightly different descriptions, which we believe can be explained by the phenomenon of a ‘dull personality’ and low awareness. It is arguable that these brands do not have a clear and distinguished positioning strategy, which indeed affects the consumers’ perception of the brands. In terms of the focus groups’ perception of the five optician brands, we can conclude that the same blurred picture is repeated. Louis Nielsen is once again the most noticeable brand and is perceived as the cheapest optician retail brand with a lower degree of quality and service. The other brands on the other hand are gathered in a cluster and perceived quite similar. Only Thiele is perceived to be slightly more expensive, closely followed by Synoptik. This cluster might be explained by the phenomenon ‘stock in the middle’. All the brands, except from Louis Nielsen, seem to follow more than one positioning strategy to meet the consumers’ needs and focus on more than one attribute to gain consumers’ attention.
Based on what we ascertained in our analysis, we can conclude that the position that Louis Nielsen hold is by no doubt the one that is most distinguished. Due to a blue ocean inspired strategy, Louis Nielsen has found an attractive position, and if the brand manages to increase and improve its quality image, it is arguable the brand is on its way to become a category killer with a position of low price and high quality. Only Synoptik seems able to threaten Louis Nielsen due to its high quality level and by meeting the price level head on with Louis Nielsen. Though, we would like to emphasize that Synoptik will have a hard time being perceived as cheap compared to Louis Nielsen, who needs to convince the consumers of having a good quality for low prices.
Due to an increase of the fashion and trendy aspect of wearing glasses, and since our analyses had shown that differentiation of a store image and brand personality is not exploited in the high-end part of the sector, we can conclude that a high-end fashion position is considered
attractive and obtainable for Profil Optik and Thiele, as both brands already have high-end characteristics. This leads us to the conclusion of how Thiele can create an attractive position by being the first to take ‘ownership’ of a high-end fashion position, as none of the other optician brands are holding a high-end fashion position at this moment. In conclusion, we assume that this position is sustainable and economic attractive if Thiele manage to create a strong unique brand personality and implement the right positioning strategy.
In order for Thiele to take a high-end fashion position, Thiele has to target the relevant consumers. Based on our collected knowledge, we can conclude that Thiele has been targeting a wide group of consumers and in regard to this, it is important to state that Thiele cannot be something to every consumer. Thiele needs to be clear about whom the target group is, when taking a high-end fashion position. In terms of the segments of ‘Gallups Kompas’, we can conclude that Thiele’s consumers are to be found in the modern related segments and not the traditional. These segments are more educated and with a higher income plus they prefer good quality and like to follow trends.
In terms of choosing the right positioning strategy, we can conclude that Thiele should not use the store image attributes or the ‘Attribute Positioning Model’ in its strategy because that is what all the other brands do. Thiele needs to differentiate its positioning strategy in order to reach out to the consumers driven by social approval in their brand selection. By utilizing a user-oriented positioning strategy, e.g. ‘the fashionable and quality conscious glass user’, Thiele is able to arouse the target group’s needs and feelings. In terms of Thiele’s brand personality, it has to be aligned with the user-oriented positioning strategy and should therefore be linked to Aaker’s personality of ‘Sophistication’.
Finally, we can conclude that if Thiele is to create an attractive high-end fashion position, some parameter adjustments and implementations have to be actualized. Thiele needs to have a broad and deep selection of popular designer brands and be updated with the newest collection in every store. Furthermore, design and atmosphere of the stores has to be aligned with the personality of sophistication. In continuation, the staff and service are also very influential parts of the store experience, and therefore Thiele should pay much attention to
staff behavior and service skills. We recommend Thiele to create a company culture build upon the brand personality and inform the staff, how they contribute to signal sophistication.
Moreover, Thiele should consider taking advantage of customers’ data and use the information to appear more customized by utilizing existing CRM-systems in ways that have not been seen in the optician sector before. Finally, Thiele needs to align its positioning strategy and brand personality to its communication strategy in order to differentiate the store brand image and obtain the recommended position.