When it comes to positioning, a correlation does make the truth: organizations that stand for something unique in the mind of consumers or customers grow and prosper while the ones that stand for nothing or too many things will eventually disintegrate sooner than later. The survival of any company in a modern market-state-economy is dependent on the quality of information available to its management as well as the staff. Unarguably, the Americans are peerless when it comes to information-sharing; they communicate lavishly. This is the source of the obvious resilience and competitive advantage which many American companies enjoy over their counterparts in Africa and Asia. For instance, there are probably more books on why Enron failed than even on IBM turn-around. But here in Nigeria, we scarcely want to talk on why a company went under because we are only used to talking about best practices. But great lessons can equally be learnt from gallant failures.

Revolutions are happening all around us and the emergence of do-it-yourself technology makes forecasting job to be fraught with enormous vulnerability today. In a market-state–economy, only the fittest companies survive the hyper competitive, dog-eat-dog economic milieu. Consumers are kings; they determine which companies to keep alive and the ones to inter. Little wonder why only 60% of the manufacturing companies and 30% of the banks that sang Christmas carol in December 1999 were alive by January 2008 to say happy New Year. In corporate Nigeria, the question is: How did Zenith bank survive the Soludo consolidation re-engineering and Fountain Trust and 63 other banks got dispatched to The Great Beyond? Was it money- power or network or luck or handiwork of unseen forces? No. The answer lies in Positioning.

Positioning is about what is unique in a company, what a company stands for. How buyers or consumers perceive a company will determine the share of the mind and the share of the shelve which such company’s products will enjoy. Positioning is about perception; and perception is reality. The 25 banks that survive the consolidation exercise are mostly the ones that represent something in the mind of consumers. And even then, it will be discovered that 1+1=5 in some banks after consolidation, while 7+1 is less than 1 among some 8 banks that came together. The long and short of it is that the companies that will survive must stand for something in the mind of consumers. A critical analysis of all the companies that have been forced to close shops whether in the media or manufacturing or telecom industries show that majority of them did not stand for something worthwhile in the mind of their respective patrons i.e. consumers. Hardly can anybody remember what Lead Merchant, Bond, ABC, and Metropolitan banks among others stood for when they were in operation? In the media, can anyone remind us what position Sentinel and Globe magazines occupied in the mind of their readers?

However, it is one thing for an organization to communicate one position to its target audience; it’s a different ball game for the audience to see the perceived value. In the last three years, arising from stiff competition, every organization has been trying to purchase a portion of the consumer mind, some have been successful while majority have failed. This is because most companies don’t match their words with actions. For instance, when Intercontinental bank comes out with ‘the face of Leadership’, people wonder which leadership? – In which area. Zenith bank says it is for people, service and technology: Service for whom? Sky bank on the other hand says it is the leader in e-business, while bank PHB says it is the king of innovation. On its part, GT bank constantly waves the ‘professionalism handkerchief’ to us. These are all wonderful positions but consumers like beautiful brides (which they are) are very cautious; they seek for hard facts, concrete evidence to know which of them is for real.

In the paragraphs that follow, we shall look into the seven pillars of positioning to enable managers of organizations see how IBM, Coca-cola, General Electric, Intel, Microsoft and Apple among other great companies managed to engrave themselves into the minds of consumers globally for generations.

Pillar 1: Leadership. The advantage of being the first in a market segment over being the best is as high as 40%. I totally agree with Al Ries and Jack Trout in their powerful book on Positioning that it is far easier to get to the market place first than to try to convince someone that you have a superior product. We witnessed this when Zenith and GT banks first came out to raise N25billion each in the stock market three years ago; they spent less money in advertising than the other banks which came after them.

Pillar 2: Mind. Marketing battles are won or lost first in the mind: getting to the market first is not as important as getting to the mind of the consumer first. The eternal advantage which Guinness stout has over Legend extra stout is the fact that Guinness got into the mind of consumers first. This is why ladies hardly forget their first ‘toaster’

Pillar 3: Perception. All truths are subjective and relative. Everything in this world is about perception. There is no brand of the year, no bank of the year; no man of the year: its all about perception. Perception is real, and it is everything.

Pillar 4: Focus. Companies that successfully own a word in the prospect minds have won 50% of the battle. 7up: the difference is clear. Coke: Always coca-cola. New Horizons: Everything is possible. First bank: truly the first. Skye bank: saying yes to your dream. It works magic, and it shows on the balance-sheet as well.

Pillar 5: Opposite. When bank PHB went for full re-branding, little did it occur to the management that it will catch fire with consumers. There is opportunity in weakness. Companies that are not number one in getting to the market or mind before competition can still prosper if it plays the law of opposite in marketing very well the way 7up and AVIS car hire have done.

Pillar 6: Line Extension: The temptation is always strong for CEOs to extend the brand equity of a product or name. But the end result is always almost a disaster. Maltina did it with little success. Fanta Chapman in coke was a failure. Almost all banks that went into mortgage business in the 1990s in Nigeria got their fingers burnt. Consumers will have no problem in drinking star lager beer from Nigerian Brewery; but certainly the concept of a coke- beer will take miracle to fly. But this is what most CEOs do each time they run out of ideas to boost revenue base of their corporations.

Pillar 7: Resources. No doubt, a life without oxygen and blood will automatically come to an abrupt close the same way a company without cash. Cash remains the king. Cash is blood in business. Without good resources the most brilliant idea won’t get off the ground. Coke, Microsoft, IBM, MTN have all used their respective financial power to permanently weaken competition. Nonetheless,ideas will continue to rule the world!

Tim Akano ([email protected])

Tim Akano is an IT specialist and CEO, New Horizons. He is a seminar presenter and one of the World’s top coaches on sixth-sense corporate strategy.