Corporate Brand Platforms:
POSITIONING

"Positioning" provides a short, specific, definitive statement of the unique ‘position’ the company hopes to earn, relative to other companies, in the minds of its audiences.

The statement should cover three bases – industry, geographic scope, and ranking.

• Industry definition can be conventional or creative; for Dow Jones a “business knowledge” category was created in which it could credibly lead.
  
  
• Geography establishes the regional, national or global scope of the company’s leadership aspirations.
  
  
• Ranking establishes a comparative position to which the entity aspires, within its chosen industry and geography… usually "the leading," premier, preferred, or one of the leaders.
  
  

The ideal positioning statement is aspirational as well as defining, thus a "goal;" it must be earned, every day.

The positioning statement provides the necessary one-line press release (and cocktail party) company definition. It is often the basis for a tag line. Examples I have worked with include:

• Dow Jones
  “The world’s preferred source of business knowledge"
  
  
• Eastman Chemical
  “The world’s preferred chemical company.”
  
  
• Malden Mills
  “Innovative fabrics, engineered for performance and beauty.”
  
  
• Celera Genomics
  "The definitive resource for human genome knowledge and its medical application."
  
  
• Flowserve
  "The world's premier provider of industrial flow management services."