Definition: How you differentiate your product or service from that of your competitors and

then determine which market niche to fill

Positioning helps establish your product's or service's identity within the eyes of the purchaser. A
company's positioning strategy is affected by a number of variables related to customers'
motivations and requirements, as well as by its competitors' actions.

Before you position your product or service, you should answer the following strategic questions
about your market and your products or services:

 What's your customer really buying from you? Remember that McDonald's isn't just
selling burgers and fries. It sells fast food that tastes the same, no matter when or where
it's ordered, in an environment that's clean and friendly to families.
 How's your product or service different from those of your competitors? A
cheeseburger is a cheeseburger, you may think. But look how McDonald's, Burger King
and Wendy's differentiate their fast food. They offer different side dishes (onion rings at
Burger King, french-fried potatoes at McDonald's), different toys with kids' meals (a big
incentive for the under-age-10 set), and different ways of cooking their burgers (Burger
King's are broiled, McDonald's, grilled).
 What makes your product or service unique? In New England, McDonald's is the only
fast-food chain to offer lobster rolls (a lobster salad sandwich served in a grilled hot-dog
roll) in the summer.

Once you've answered these strategic questions based on your market research, you can then
begin to develop a positioning strategy for your business plan. A positioning statement for a
business plan doesn't have to be long or elaborate, but it does need to point out who your target
market is, how you'll reach them, what they're really buying from you, who your competitors are,
and what your USP (unique selling proposition) is.

Remember, the right image packs a powerful marketing punch. To make it work for you, follow
these steps:

 Create a positioning statement for your company. In one or two sentences, describe
what distingu
 Brand Position :

Brand Position Quality service Promoter of Indian values Value for money Friendly and
comfortable"Positioning" is dead, and McDonald's has just put up the tombstone. But what is
really interesting for branding is what is taking its place.

The signs of "positioning's" demise are everywhere. The number of branding failures, many
based on "positioning," exceeds 90%, according to the consultancies Ernst & Young and
McKinsey & Co. McDonald's, the premier mass market branding giant, announced that it has
abandoned positioning. Says Larry Light, McDonald's chief global marketing officer:
"Identifying one brand position, communicating it in a repetitive manner is old-fashioned, out of
date, out of touch." Even more bluntly, Light highlights "the end of brand positioning as we
know it," calling it "marketing suicide." Even a top executive at advertising giant Leo Burnett is
willing to stand before his CEO peers and admit, "the old ways of marketing are not working any
more."

The best epitaph for the death of positioning was written in the April 2 issue of the Economist.
The cover story, entitled "Power at Last," illustrated how consumers now buy based on research
and personal value, not on companies seek to "position" their products. "I am constantly amazed
at the confidence level and sophistication of the average consumer," says Mike George, Dell's
chief marketing officer.

From the beginning, "positioning" had a fatal flaw in its DNA that made its death inevitable.
That fatal flaw? A lack of measurement. In their landmark book "Positioning," Jack Trout and Al
Ries even turned marketing away from the benchmarks that drive the rest of business by stating
"mind share is more important than market share." Market share is generally measurable; mind
share, unfortunately, isn't.

For a long time, this inability to incorporate measurements did not matter. In 1979, when the
book "Positioning" was first published, the mass economy ruled. Armed with the monolithic
power of the mass media, companies could "position" mass-produced products to mass markets.
Any measurement besides total sales was too hard, too rudimentary or too late.

But now, measurement is critical, whether it takes the form of customer equity, ROMI (return-
on-marketing-investment), ROMO (return-on-marketing-objective), cash-to-order cycles,
retention rates or any other spreadsheet-driven metric. Despite its importance, fewer than 20% of
companies surveyed have developed meaningful metrics for their marketing organizations,
according to the technology-based CMO Council. Over 80% of the companies surveyed
expressed dissatisfaction with their ability to benchmark their marketing programs' business
impact and value.

The result of focusing on "positioning" instead of measurability is having an unfortunate impact.

The research consultancy Forrester recently reported that companies are looking at disbanding
marketing departments and distributing its function among sales, customer service, etc. While
that is definitely eyebrow-raising, it's a logical outcome for a function that represents the second
biggest outlay for most companies, yet cannot generate the metrics to justify those expenditures.
"Awareness and "position" just don't cut it anymore in executive suites.

"Positioning" has other defects as well. The exercise is a company-driven process that reflects
how companies wish to sell ("the leading provider of ...") instead of determining what - and how
- customers seek to buy. Such posturing worked well in the mass economy, but the tactic is
doomed to failure in, as the Economist pointed out, a customer-driven world.

Another weakness is "positioning's" commandment to seek the #1 or #2 space in a category. If

those spaces are occupied by competitors, then "positioning" advises creating a category where
you can play top dog. In addition to the fact that it now extremely difficult to establish a
meaningful category in a highly competitive world, it also means that your branding strategy is
being driven by your competitors. Branding must be driven by your customer demands for value,
not by the market timing of competitors.

So if "positioning" has faded into mass-economy history, what has taken its place? McDonald's
advocates "brand journalism," or tailoring products and messages to both targets and media.
"Positioning" advocates are apoplectic at such apostasy. "The notion that McDonald's should
abandon the positioning philosophy and instead adopt a brand journalism approach is lunacy,"
says Laura Reiss, who is still echoing the precepts in her father's 25-year-old book. Lunacy? The
abandonment of "positioning" and adoption of brand journalism has played a large part in the
burger giant's remarkable turnaround recently.

By recognizing that it is better served by adapting itself to customer requirements instead of

preaching a "position," McDonald's is definitely on the right track with "brand journalism." but
the term is awkward for several reasons. A better term for this customer-driven strategy that
reflects today's branding realities is "brand wikization."

Born from the Internet's ability to link an archipelago of people and information, wikis are the
mirror-image of blogs. While blogs reflect one person's worldview, wikis, written collaboratively
by contributors from all over the world, reflect a common judgment on an issue. Definitions
depend not on what Funk or Wagnall or Webster say they should be, but on what thousands or
even millions of people agree on what they are.

In much the same way, brands today are collectively defined by their customers. Based on
personal or business requirements for economic, emotional or experiential value, this wiki-based
definition derives from personal experiences, word-of-mouth, research and multiple marketing
tactics. Companies can "position" themselves as anything, but unless there is essentially a
customer-driven consensus on the brand"s wiki, then the "positioning" is no more than corporate
posturing. Instead of seeking to unilaterally "position" their products, companies focused on
branding today must devote resources to defining, delivering, measuring and sustaining the value
that customers feel they receive.

Brand wikization has numerous advantages over "positioning." First, it is a customer-driven, not
a corporate-driven, strategy, ideal in a highly-fragmented, highly competitive world where
deeper relationships ultimately mean greater profits. Second, wikization forces companies to
respond to customer requirements, or risk their brand. Companies can "position" themselves as
customer-centric or leading providers or whatever, but the "position" means nothing if callers are
put on hold for eternities. Finally, and most important, wikization is measurable by a variety of
metrics. If you know what customers value (or how they hold you accountable), then you can
measure how you are delivering against those benchmarks for accountability.

So how can companies adapt to the realities of the customer economy and wikize their brands?
Stay tuned for the next commentary.

Nick Wreden is a managing director of FusionBrand, a leading brand consultancy in southeast

Asia. His latest book is "ProfitBrand: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability and
Sustainability of Brands." Contact Nick at nick@fusionbrand.com. www.fusionbrand.com
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