Strategic positioning of promotional marketing firms in Kenya

Abstract

An organization's strategic position is its perceptual location relative to others. Strategic positioning provides a vehicle for creating organizational focus and a framework for considering these resource allocation questions. When an organization can clearly articulate its perceptual location relative to those of other organizations, the complexities surrounding these decisions are significantly reduced (Gershon 2003). Compared with manufacturing firms, services face unique problems in positioning and promoting their offerings. The design of the service environment is an important aspect of the positioning strategy and conveys the image of the organization (Schiffman & Kanuk 2000). The type of industry an organization is in will influence the way it competes and the strategies it will adopt. According to Porter (1996), strategic positions emerge from three distinct sources, which are not mutually exclusive and often overlap. These strategies have been used to study the promotional marketing industry in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time of this study there were twenty one registered promotional marketing organizations (Marketing society of Kenya 2003) sixteen responded. Data was obtained from senior managers of these companies using a semi-structured questionnaire administered through personal interviews. Data was summarized using frequency tables, percentages and descriptive mean scores. The findings indicated that the promotional marketing industry is very young and most companies in this sector are less than four years old. All but one of them were locally owned and run. Differentiation was the most popular strategic position taken by most organizations. The mainstay of this industry lay in giving services mainly in product launches consumer promotions and competition. Anticipated market growth and industry profitability played a key role in motivating entry in the sector, which faced constant business seasonality. Experience of top management, quality of service and period of operation in the industry were the key success factors in the industry. Lack of a strong and large client/portfolio size and low loyalty were the main weakness highlighted in organizations' self-assessments while innovation, innovation/creativity and quality of service were the main strengths. A large proportion of organizations audited their environment mainly by informal means and formally through Kenya Revenue Authority, Marketing Society of Kenya and Registrar of society. Organizations in this sector are positioned although not all seem to have a cohesive strategy. They all needed to clearly define their strategic focus create niches for themselves and be proactive in increasing their client and portfolio size. They needed to create a professional body to set standards and control entry into their business.