Study 1 examines whether providing a product characteristic cue in the form of a positioning message may positively affectconsumer quality perceptions of suboptimal products, and thereby reduce the need for price discounts. If positioning messages indeed increase quality perceptions, it might be possible to combine these withother signals of a high quality, such as higher prices (Zeithaml, 1988).Therefore, Study 2 further investigates the effect of positioning togetherwith a price increase.