Seat at the Table

When it comes time to develop corporate positioning and messages, companies often tend to look inward with leadership and related messages, rather than outward.  While it’s understandable that people and organizations what to talk about themselves, the public doesn’t necessarily want to listen.  What the public wants to know is how you’ll solve their problems and make life better.

Going on the rule that numbers rule, I’ve found that Economic Positioning is one of the most effective approaches of outward looking corporate positioning.    Positioning refers to corporate positioning frameworks that show how companies address  major economic issues and what the economic (financial) upside is for the company.  In other words, what is the market opportunity a company is addressing and how bit is the potential market to fix that problem.

A great example can be found on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times in the article Frustration Grows at Carousel as More Baggage Goes Astray.   A not very well know company, SITA (they make transportation technology solutions - such as tracking baggage), received outstanding attention (saying who they are and what they do) on the front page using economic positioning.

The article uses SITA’s number to build an economic argument.  It sites from numbers such as 30 million bags being mishandled each year, airlines spending $2.5 billion finding and delivering them, 183,234 passengers had mishandled bags in September alone.   These numbers came from third party sources such as the Transportation Department but may well have been compiled by SITA (or should be).  

What we’re seeing here is SITA being well positioned not by saying what a great company they are or how they help airlines and consumers, but by quantitatively articulating a major market problem that affects consumers, the economics of that problem and then providing a solution that consumers can understand.  Basically, they let the numbers drive their position.

I don’t know exactly how SITA arrived at their numbers but it’s not difficult to figure it out.  If almost 200,000 bags were lost in the US just in September, saying 30 million being lost around the world annually is not a difficult extrapolation.   If the cost of a bag being found and delivered is $80 to $90 per bag (time looking, delivery costs for big bags etc), then arrive at $2.5 billion (30 million * $83/per bag) is easy math. 

If the PR department put these numbers together for the reporter.  Bravo.  If the reporter did it, good for them and PR professionals should take a lesson in what drives an article. 

I also took a look at SITA’s site to see how they were leveraging the article.  Sadly, they weren’t.  There was no messaging on the front page tied to what was in the article.  There was, however, a nice collection of industry reports, making the site a valuable place to visit even if you don’t need their products today or are simply doing media research (perhaps the reporter just took the information and didn’t work directly with the company).

 Either way, SITA still has obviously done a good job making sure they can present a major economic problem that affects consumers and then show how they solve it.  It’s not about me the company, it’s about me the audience (and my wallet).