 سلام علیکم خواتینہ حضرات وزیم ایساً ویلکمس you to the virtual university of پاکستان we are into lecture number 17 of brand management mkt624 in the previous lecture we learned the concept of positioning in its very preliminary nature i still have to talk about the definition which summarizes whatever we discussed in the previous lecture but let us pick up the threads where i left was talking about what is it that strong positioning provides the company with because it goes without saying that any company trying to position its brand has thought to be able to create a very strong position in the minds of the customers a strong positioning therefore leads to so many different advantages and benefits that companies and brands enjoy over periods to come the first that i discussed was that a strong positioning leads to a valued place for the brand in the minds of the consumers the second point which i talked about was that strong positioning evolves around a certain benefit which means it makes your benefit very stand out in relation to the competition everybody is out to provide customers with the benefits but if you have a strong position your position is really going to make that benefit very obvious and very prominent it brings that into limelight and therefore makes your brand stands stand apart strong positioning provides a very good focus to the company it makes the organization focus its resources in the right direction with why because all the strategies which i'm going to talk about later all the strategies in relation to operations stem from the positioning statement positioning statement that tells the company with where the brand is going to be in relation to the pricing quality and all the features which are going to be offered to the target market and therefore all these strategies and executions with the meaning tactics as a translation of those strategies are going to revolve around that positioning and therefore the positioning provides the company with a very good focus without a very explicitly the spelled out position for a brand with which the company انتانس to create in the minds of the consumers the chances are the company is going to go astray because they're here in there into so many different directions and that's where the the problem of moving from strategy to strategy because it comes in which is harmful for the brand i did talk about that and i certainly will have an opportunity of talking about that and for the details because when i'm talking talking with you as to how finally develop the brand plan because the brand plan is going to look into all the concepts because we should be learning all along the line anyway back to the strong positioning apart from providing the very good focus to the organization to stay its course another thing which the positioning strong positioning the best to the organization enter the brand is that it provides it leverages the brand into so many different extensions because when your brand has a very strong positioning it automatically means it is a good seller in the market and good sales is the last objective of any organization and of any brand when you have a brand well leveraged you feel tempted to go into the different areas related areas or may not be those to which are very closely related but it is a brand strength to which offers that opportunity and which presents the company with that kind of potential and promise you will recall the value good brands meaning strong brands offer to the company it is because of the strength that you are in a position to move here and there into different categories introducing new offerings it is because of the strong positioning that you extend brands in other words brand extension is one area which i'm going to talk about in detail spanning over like two to three lectures at least and that is going to make the whole concept very clear that what is it that plays the ground for you to move into different directions with the help of a strong brand but why is it that you do not really like to stop whatever you are meaning just string the course because wherever you are you still feel tempted to leverage the strength of the existing brand into other categories we should be talking about that so strong positioning further leverages the brand and it offers us so many different opportunities of growth and expansion strong positioning also that lays the foundation for all operational strategies it is the basic determinant of those operational strategies if we have poor positioning or if we have no positioning at all the chances are that the operational strategies that we are going to craft that are going to be based on ad hoc ism and in turn the chances are that we shall go astray and hear them there in directions to which are unwarranted and directions which are not strategic and end up in the middle of nowhere in terms of achievement of our goals so we can say that operational strategies flow out of a very strong positioning statement because the why i say statement i'm going to talk about in a short file because you might be questioning i've been talking about positioning as that is something which solves communication problems and all of a sudden i have used the word statement that i'll come to that it is from that positioning statement which explains because what the positioning is that we craft all the operational strategies so up until now that i think we are quite very clear about the benefits which is strong positioning which brings to the company and to the brand another benefit which strong positioning provides the company with is it enables the brand to get into the minds being the first one how does that happen you try to create a position with the point of reference now that point of reference like i talked about earlier maybe in the product attributes or may that lie into the price factor or may that lie into distribution or may that lie into something else it has to be very meaningful for the customers and if if it really is very meaningful and you have identified that then you are going to create a very strong position not only you are going to create a very strong position you're going to be the first one to get into the minds of the customers and that is one of the most beautiful things which a strong position does to a brand they uh propounders of the concept give examples because they are very interesting examples from so many other areas of life about positioning one being just think of uh the person the first person to land on the moon you remember the name probably most probably if i would ask you because who was the second man to land on the moon you would not know that if i would ask you as an example who was the first one to have gone to the mount Everest you probably will know that most of the people in the world know that but if i would ask who was the second man to have gone to the mount Everest i think most of the people will not know so the conclusion is whatever is done first is something which creates a very good position in the minds of the consumers and it stays there and then it becomes very difficult to dislodge so this is the the one good thing which strong positioning enables you to do with the brand that you'll be the first one to enter their minds that oversimplified mind which is going to work in your favor the one prerequisite about the strong positioning is that the strong positioning has got to be customer driven and when i say customer driven it means it has to be owned by the customers what does that mean i think the meaning of this statement should be very obvious and automatic in light of all the learning that has taken place so far everything that we are talking about we are talking about from the perspective and the standpoint of the customer if we are trying to create a position with which is miles and miles apart from what the customer has in his mind then of course the positioning is not going to work and it is not going to be a strong position i mean of course without saying so in order to be able to create a strong position you've got to be very clear with about the fact that the position you create should be the one or rather must be the one which is readily acceptable to customers and they are willing to own that and they will own that only if you identify that particular need which you are trying to fulfill let us be clear about a few more facts that all these factors that we have talked about mean that through positioning you can distinguish your brand from the rest of the crowd this is a fact of life that if you have a good positioning that you can really distinguish your brand from the rest of the crowd so this is the statement in itself and this is what they conclude from whatever we have talked about positioning so far and the distinction how do you do that you do that by communicating the very distinctive characteristics of your brand in all your communications you talk in a very coherent way all the characteristics of the brand and those are the characteristics which are the focal point of your positioning i mean it may be just one or just a couple it cannot be so many i'm using the word characteristics but what i mean is whatever position you're going to choose like i talked about in the previous lecture whatever position you're going to choose has got to be under a very short focus and you've got to talk about that and when you do that the chances are customers are going to own that and they're going to accept that because they already have a picture of that so what you're doing is you're you're cashing in on the what is there and you're trying to capitalize on that in case it is a new brand it goes without saying that you've got to be the first one to start talking about that point of difference or that point of positioning so that the first one to get into the minds i mean that goes without saying a very very important factor a very very important fact of the brand management life what is the different about your brand that does appeal to customers this is another fact of life another fact of the brand management life and this is an extension of the statement which i made earlier proceeding to this statement that it is not difficult for customers to feel that are very much associated to your brand because strong positioning and all the factors i talked about relating strong positionings have a very strong appeal to to the customers for the customers and this appeal results from very analytical process that are based on the four questions to the which now i'm going to talk about the reason i talk about analytical process because it is a process of comparisons and comparisons are all about to the your own brand vis-a-vis competition and it is on the basis of those comparisons that customers are going to draw certain conclusions out of the based in which they're going to make the final decision which brand to buy and which brand not to buy how that process works let us talk about you know these four questions to the first very important fundamental four questions which you must remember and you must never lose sight of these questions with whatever brand you're working on whatever category you are working in whatever company you're working for and number one is you must know your brand stands for what this addresses the brand promise and the benefits and you people are by now experts on the brand promise and the brand with the benefits and the delivery of those to the benefits and all that so if you have created a position which we should be talking in with the help of an example also if you have created a position and it is not in line with the promise and with the brand benefits which the brand offers and the brand contract and so on and so forth the positioning is not right so you must ask آپ yourself the basic question a brand for what the second question that you must ask yourself is a brand for whom now this question addresses the target segment you will recall the price quality index that i talked about in one of my lectures previously when i pointed towards segmentation and the pricing in relation to segmentation it is the the same concept but now i'm approaching this concept from the positioning point of view previously it was talking about just segmentation and different levels of pricing and the price gap because it was there before something xyz and brand xyz to fail in but today i'm talking from a different perspective to reach the same point because which i talked earlier and you will not forget i get the point about best thing that all these are the sophisticated concepts of brand management but it will steer you toward a point of convergence and that is the point of difference which you are going to create and then maintain to be able to sell your brand okay a brand for what and a brand for whom the third question which you have to ask yourself is a brand for when meaning for what occasion could you are launching the brand for or if your brand exists on the market already then you've got to be sure that the communication that is being undertaken to the hammer into the customer's mind relates to the right kind of occasions for which the brand is meant for for which the brand is tailored if you have introduced a sandwich which basically is going to fulfill the need around the lunch time then the communication has got to be concentrated and focused on that factor it is not going to take into account the evening time or the family time to the which all the members of the family سپنے together but how can you go for a commercial or an ad but it shows all the family members sitting together enjoying that sandwich if it is positioned for the lunch time meant for those professionals to the who are at work and do not really have time to go out and grab something to fulfill their lunch need you have made the promise to the web those customers to provide them at the doorstep that xyz brand of sandwich and that is the positioning so what i'm saying is the the positioning has to answer this question a brand for when and when you answer this question for the you craft all the strategies which are very much in line with the positioning concept after having answered this question number three the all important question number four a very fundamental question is the brand against whom whenever you launch a brand you launch that against somebody i mean there are competitors other players in the market who have the things like that even if you're going to be the first one to introduce a product which has not existed before well you're going to have competition and you must take that into account the competitive factor the competitive dimensions in the onslaught could be which will be in the offering in times to come so you have got to be very clear about who are the competitors you are going to capture the volumes from where are your volumes going to come from this is the fourth fundamental question to the which a very succinct and the well laid out positioning statement must answer i was talking about you're being the first one to introduce something which has not existed before but which is very difficult nowadays unless that you are going to introduce something like computers you know for the first time that which caused revolution the case is going to be otherwise i mean they're going to be competitors in the marketplace and you have got to be sure where the volumes are going to come from and even in that case because where you do not have competitors the volumes have to come from somewhere like the people that are using other products and other brands and they're going to make a transition from those two viewers so we can now say with a lot of confidence that positioning means that all the consumer choices are a result of our comparisons and a selection process which is defined by these four questions isn't it i'm sure you'll agree with me if you have answered these questions very convincingly and you're being very honest to yourself than the positioning of what the brand is going to be just about the right positioning do not be under any kind of pressure to feel the need to must come up with something meaning must come up with some offering which is different from before but only for the sake of creativity like i talked about earlier the prepounders of the concept will say this thing very clearly and this is their statement that creativity for the sake of creating something new or creating something new for the sake of creativity is not going to work in present day's world because of the factors i talked about i think the psychological side of the positioning concept whatever we have in our minds is very clear to you and the need to have a very strong positioning is also very clear to you and from that psychology into the brand management the transition of the concept has been very clear i think that you need to answer certain questions because those are the questions which lead you toward some tangible actions in terms of developing something very different from the rest of the market and then you relate that with that psychology of the consumer and you start talking about that and that is the way you solve a communication problem and the communication problem if you remember stems from over communication so if positioning is strong and you have taken into consideration all the fundamentals then there are very strong chances that everything is going to fall in place and all the strategies which are going to be developed out of a well laid out and the positioning statement are going to be the strategies very workable we are clear that a brand can be positioned in so many different ways and those are that you position the brand by price position the brand by different features you position the brand by distribution and so on and so forth and as a conclusion of all that we have talked and learned so far let me restate this fact that a good positioning of the brand that makes it possible for the company to make we promise and the extra features of the brand very obvious to the consumer and that is how the consumer gets hooked onto your brand having said all that about positioning concept i now am in a position to give you a very precise definition of positioning which says positioning is a concise statement that summarizes brand's commitment or promise through target consumers and actively communicates the advantage over competing brands this is a very meaningful statement or a definition so to say and we're going to analyze and dissect this definition into so many different components going by this definition that we can see that positioning has three primary components where the one is the component of company business the industry or the category now this is something which i talked about earlier as part of the industry analysis where the while i was talking about the need for a very clear version for the company meaning the overall business and the need for a brand version which flows out of that version i talked at great length about the need for carrying out industry analysis so this component of the positioning statement relates the company business to the meaning where the company belongs and the category in which the company اپرates the industry or which the company is a part but we must have a very clear understanding of this component of the positioning definition again just going by the definition the second component of the positioning concept is the target market we already have talked about that but just in order to make a transition to a practical example that which is coming اخروجڈs اگرہ would like to say that the second component remains the target market until the time that we really are very clear about the target market and are creating a positioning meant for the consumers who are part of that market that we are not really talking about the right stuff the third component of the positioning that as per this definition ہے جس سے مروریores سوadors ہیں۔ دقيدا ، یہ a فکٹر ہے ، یہ قầu ہی ہے ، میں ہم ہم اچھا کرایئے ایک کوہزر بہت گا رہا ہوں ، میں اور جہاں اپنے مرضے میں بھی여 ہوں۔ ہم یہ میرے اپنےائیہ سے مہموریہے چھوڑا کے ملیت میں ساکتے ہیں۔ Luckily I'm talking about all these components in the light of the definition which I've given to you. لیکن جانتے ہیں ، ایک سو!... بہتاہی ، ہمیارت because تراثیب ہوں ۔ لہن now discuss the positioning statement of the fast food سیہ جیسے میں وہرے جانڈیذیز کا سرٹس کرنا پڑھھنا دکھنا چاہتا ہے جڑکی کیا کیا حقیط کیا ہے اور ہمانیوں کی طرف کہ انکیبلید کے ساتھ کیا جو اپنی مال کیا یا اس کے بارے کو مشہورہ کریں اس میں سے عاملہ میں چاہتا ہے جو یہ سلیگ gereس پر حقیط کیا جائیں گا تو آپ کو سلام کرتا ہے جو اپنی اپنی وہنی آپ میں ملے پیصلی کامنے کے باری لگہ ب building ڈیشانو کہتے ہیں۔ اپنے اپنے اپنے اپنے اپنے اپنے ساتھ ستا ہے۔ اپنے پیاردوں کا لیزاہ کرسیت ہے۔ کباریز بینی صرف اپنے انتر ناجل ساتھ جانتے ہیں۔ اپنے اپنے اپنے ط béق tight پریشکگ既شاد کی بارےیہ ہے۔ تمام لشتا ہے۔ یہ اپنے مبارس پیاردےISTی پرشکگ حضورتے ہیں۔ مجھے دعا اپنے شخص پر پر سمجھے ہونا چاہتے ہیں۔ میں کمیچہ خطر دیتے ہیں ، کچھ کچھ سمجھے ہی کیا ہے ، شخص پر پر کمیچہ ہی جانتے ہیں ، اور اپنے شخص پر پر پیشتا ہے۔ لیکن ، ہم ایسا دیکھنے کو دیکھنے کیا ہے۔ اور پھر دیکھنے کے لئے ، اگر ہی تصریف Over اور بہت ایک حالت ہے کہ ہمارے حقیقتی جانتے ہیں کہ آپ کو اپنے حقیقتی جانتے ہیں یہ قیادہ جانتا ہے کہ میں آپ کو اپنے حقیقتی جانتا ہے اور جو اپنے حقیقتی جانتے ہیں مغردی ہم ہے جانتا ہے جو اگر یہاں سکتا ہے، ایک مجھے ذکرہ میں سکتا ہے۔ اسے دل چاہتے ہیں جب میں ایک سnes سی افتاد ہوتا ہے۔ سنبیہ جو کسی گنیا ہوتا ہے سنبیہ جانتا ہے۔ جس چینگی اس پراجی طور پرچہ پرکی ہے جس سی پرچہ پرچہ ہے۔ بیادی میں کمل دائمانے میں ب also work with a college work with working in other departments of the company because they do not know the target market you are talking about and they are not very clear about the point of difference to which you really want to capitalize on. So all I'm saying is it should not be very verbals and it should not be very very long. عقبطہ وضعحون دارید کسٹوندار کو مفاملی شیطہ کرنا پرنے میں لطفات عقبہ دارید کی پرکنش آگی ہے۔ اِس میں بہت بارے پرخلی بگرہ کے لئے جانتی شیطہ میں دارید کسٹنا ہے۔ جو خواہت法ح پرکنش ہے کہ یہ اکترامی دارید جو اہم ارض کے ملے کسٹ دارید میں بھی ہے وی جانتی ہے۔ ہمیں سیکارانے کا نصورتہ رہے ہیں کہ بارون کے امام، کلوٹی پھر بھی separation ہیں اور نقل کے لئے ایک بیلوں کی موضوع کر دیئے ہیں۔ ایک بیلوں کے لئے امام کیا امام کو نصورت ہے کہ اس نا lot wär بھی عذر کے لئے چلنے کی ساتھ سools تقرمポہمار ہے۔ کہی تصمیدبرار اتنے کے لئے تصمیدبرار کے لئے After the purchase decision to buy the consumers to form the position statement and these are the ones which belong to different components, that we are talking a price and we are talking about quality, we are talking about accessibility and we are talking about all these things of course one target market کے لئے ہماری سیاب کرنے کے لئے ہماری سیاب کو کا بیشنہ سے فرم اگر آپ کے لئے بسٹائنکتا ہے کہ اگر عصر جمہ پر ایک عصر سے مجھبر에요 کے لئے ایک کیا ایک مصیدہ آئے تھا اندرسی بلیگا کو جو تھا بھی ایک دور درعمی کاس کرنے ساتھ خلیت میرے جس یہی مجھبر کو ایک مسلم جارہیける گے اور اندرسی بلیگا کی بہت سے بہت مصیدہ کرے مجھب سار کا اقت کھوکہ دارہی Absolutely. But this is talking about the industry of FASTFUL. It is talking about the equality benchmark, like I said earlier. So if you take a very hard look at the statement, you will know that this is really talking about all the components that are which I talked about. And it is a very comprehensive nature because these are the components that are going to lay the foundation پرکانہ ونیلiefوں پر اپکی دیکھتا ہے اور خودم وال دسترارے سے کافی کریں گے اور جو کافی میں پیشت ہوتے ہیں وقفا براہ دل جو خودی ہوتے ہیں اور جو کافی میں پیشت ہوتے ہیں آپ نے کوئی جیساہے ہوتا ہے کے لئے کافی شخص وحقیت کچھ دیکھ بہنPhood ہوئ Dylan سیس میں کافی سجھے جاتے ہیں جس کے لئے آپ کو اس کی شخص پیشت nào جو چیز کا حیث نانا بڑی آج آنے کے لئے جو عماری جانتے ہیں۔ آپ کی حصولتے کیا بہت Cehra جانتے ہیں؟ آپ کو ہمکرزا بھی بہت ساری بہت بہت مقابل ہے، اور ہم ایک مکرزا کے لئے ہوا بہت بہت ساری بہت ساری بہت ساری بہت مقابل ہے۔ تو آپ کو یہ کامنے میں توہلی خریقوں کو دیدھلتے ہیں لہذا آپ کے خارج کے دور pourrait Robinson لے گیاک پکولتی بے ایک منہ بہت دیئے جس کسی ایسا کسی خوب ہے ربی شامپوس سیمپوسر لے گیاک کر دے گیاک ڈیو پیسٹ بہت سیگرٹس اکڑی کسی بیسکٹس سیمپوٹ کسی بیسکٹس any consumer idea ڈیوڈر because because our consumer durables could be cars computer and you try to place your brother in a different Brains on this map and then seek they were belonged in terms of their positioning. It is very very interesting and keep one of those brands as yours. Let us now take a look at this map. As you can see get this positioning map. Kind of which is universally accepted and used by all the marketing people. ہے. these four quadrants are divided by two different axis. The one is the price, and the other one is quality. The price runs vertically and quality runs horizontally. At the bottom of the price axis we have as is obvious the lowest price and as you go up you keep going up but the price ladder and same as the case with the quality excess on the left hand side that we have the lowest of the lows and at the extreme right because we have the highest of the highs. And in between lowest of the lows and highest of the highs we have different stages and different levels of quality. Let us talk about the brand XYZ in relation to اس نقل ، یہ اینجاہ ہے اور یہ مہمار ہے ، آپ کو جو اپنی اپنی بریہت پہلے دوٹوں کا تھوڑی کو تے دیکھیں ، میں جز moisturizer کے جیسے ہے ، آپ کو تک بات پیشہ تک بہت ایک ایک بہت دیکھیں جس کےDDکانہ اور اپنی 6 تک بہت دیکھیں جو وہ مالی دیگردار کے ملوانہ ہوں ۔ ساری مالی باردی کے برائیداد". مجھے another way is an extension of what I showed you by way of the price quality index. That price quality index is very original. It is not something which is used universally by different companies. It is something which has been developed specifically for your understanding, which is a fact. This positioning map is something which is universally used. Okay, with the back to competition, there are six competitors who are shown belonging to different parts of four quadrants. If you look at the left bottom pink quadrant, there is one competitor. Now this competitor is offering something which is very low in price and it also is low in quality. It is not the lowest of lows because the lowest of lows could have been on the extreme left of the pink quadrant. Let us not take a look at the next one which is a little upscale but still very down in terms of price and quality. The red competitor in the bottom right quadrant which is green. This competitor is charging a price which of course is higher than that of the pink one. And in terms of the quality it is much higher because it is moving from left to the right. So it is a little upscale and it defines in a way a different segment. I think it goes without saying and with the help of this map it should be clear to you by now. Let's take a look at another competitor belonging to upper left yellow quadrant. I think it is very clear the price quality index of this competitor and now take a look at the blue quadrant where we have three competitors. The one is at the bottom of this quadrant who of course is higher in price and quality not higher in price in relation to the one in the yellow quadrant but in comparison with others in green and pink one higher in price and higher in quality. Now this is a competitor which may have kind of affecting posture or affecting positioning for others who are going to be close to this competitor. If you take a look upwards in the blue quadrant you will see two or more competitors sitting right on top of anybody else and my assumption is that these two dots represent international chains. What do they represent? They represent the highest price and the highest quality prevalent in the market. If you go by the two X's the price and quality you will know that and it is obvious. When you compare these two with the bottom red within the same quadrant you see a gap in between and this is the gap which is filled by brand XYZ isn't it interesting. There was nobody there and this brand thought now this is a hypothetical situation I keep saying that. There was nobody there and the brand XYZ thought that if this gap is filled then XYZ is going to represent a segment or represent a fulfillment of a need which was there but nobody had approached that for that fulfillment. This is I would say a beautiful example of filling a gap or fulfilling an unmet need in relation to competition which exists in the marketplace. You have to look for gaps where they are and then decide with the help of this kind of positioning map where you should place yourself and then relate this positioning with the price quality index which I showed you earlier. What I am saying is that this mapping should proceed that price quality index. Once you have this understanding then you can go toward that and decide for yourself what exactly should be the price level and what are the segments. What is the segment and what could be the segments where the brand should have its representation with the help of extensions or with the help of variations with which the brand once it becomes powerful which well make their presence in the future. I am going to talk about extensions and variations in detail in the coming lectures in the hope that your understanding with the help of the positioning map is even clearer. Let us now once again talk about the positioning definition in relation to the components with which I indicated earlier. For a better understanding in addition to the factors of total business, the category, the target segment, the point of difference that we are not going to get into the further details of those components. So if those were the macro, we are not going to get into the micro details of how those components come together and what are the considerations which we must have in order to answer questions relating those components. We have to have the clarity about business and that clarity that could be answered through so many different questions like what exactly is the category and who are the players. This is something in which I talked about earlier also but just in order to maintain the perspective it is very important that we must know the players who form the overall category. We must know what is the size of the category and what is the growth factor and how has the growth factor been over the last so many years to the meaning whether the growth has been explosive or the growth has been slow. These are the questions that we have to answer. How has the different competitors or different players been playing the game within the category whether what has been the growth rate in relation to every individual player to be reckoned with. What are the entry barriers to this category and when I talk about entry barriers what I mean is the kind of resources which are needed for any brand to get into the category because when you are positioning your brand with certain fundamentals in your mind you are considering competition and you are considering competition which already exists and you also are considering competition which may be attracted because of the success of your brand or maybe by the success of some other brands. So what are the barriers for any new entrant and I said it is the resources which are needed in order to make a landing into that category. The money you need in order to put up restaurants talking of the example of brand XYZ the money that you need to communicate for example the need for a very good communication campaign which can really substantiate the positioning which we have created and so on and so forth. The resources that you need for the human resource who is going to be instrumental in delivering the promise. Now that human resource may not fall within the ambit of just brand management that human resource may belong to production area meaning operations that may belong to logistics that may belong to product development and that may belong to any other area which you may think of in relation to delivering the promise. So these are the possible barriers which we should have in our mind just in order to make sure how difficult it is or how not difficult it is for anyone to enter the category. We also have to answer the one more question in relation to the category in overall business and that is about our own position. How confident we are that we are going to retain and sustain this position for a long time to come. If you think we may not be able to sustain the position for a long time to come what is the time frame and what is it that we are going to have in place in order to maintain that position. Are there competitors who can threaten us right away or we are not going to have competitors right away because this is a very unique and novel kind of a concept and anyone very quick at his feet is going to take some time before putting things together and before putting all the factors together even if you know he were to follow, imitate us into our footsteps. So this is the one more question that you have to answer to yourself meaning sustaining the position. You also have to answer another question and that is about the positioning of your competitors because like learned earlier this is a game which involves comparisons. This is a game which is all about the selection process and that selection process is defined by certain fundamental questions which are the basic constituents of the positioning and the positioning statement out of which your strategies are going to flow. So in order to have a very good understanding of the overall category it is not only your own position it also is the position or the positions of all the major players of which you must be aware of and you must be able to gauge and assess how long they are going to survive not only your own brand but others. Survival could maybe as I said a very radical or strong kind of a verb how long others are going to maintain and sustain their positions. another question that you must answer is will the market value our participation and if you are very convinced about the right positioning of the brand which you are introducing or the one you are working on then you must also be very clear yes the market is going to value our participation because we are going to offer something which is very unique which is very different and which carries a lot of value but this is a very heavy weight question which you must ask yourself and if the answer is no the market is not really going to value our participation then you may not go ahead with this offering at all like I told you in one of the lectures one question which you must ask yourself is what will the market do if we did not introduce of a brand if the answer is well the market couldn't care less don't go ahead with the introduction you are into the wrong area if the answer is well the market is going to miss something and the market is going to miss something really good because this product carries a lot of interesting benefits and we have to have customers who really can share the happiness or the pleasure of using this product then we must go ahead yet another question that we have to answer to ourselves is are there any multi-segment growth possibilities meaning the brand that we have launched or the brand we are working on does it carry the promise to get into other segments if the answer is yes then the positioning is very good and the clarity of business is just about right if you think that the brand does not really have the potential to carry the company into other segments then you might look upon that positioning as rather narrow minded and it is something to be concentrated on because you don't really have potential to go into other segments after the meaning you cannot really compete with other brands from other platforms when I start talking about brand extensions and brand variations you will understand the significance of having so many different variations because once you have a strong brand it is like an armada in a naval sense because you have a flagship and you have flankers that save the flagship on right and left so the brand variations and brand extensions also serve that purpose which is one of the purposes of getting into brand extensions but that is for the later discussion the point here is that if you think that your brand does offer you multi-segmental growth then that enhances the chances of expansion of the category expansion of your own business and that means the clarity of business into your mind is just about right we shall be continuing in the next lecture with the remaining two components which I still have to talk about in micro details in macro form they talk about all of them in micro terms I've just talked about the first one which is clarity about business and I still have to talk about the target market meaning target segment and the point of difference until that time I would say Allah Hafiz and see you in the next lecture