What Is Brand Positioning? Meaning, Types and a Simple Template

Ask a few people what Volvo stands for and many will say safety. Nobody put that in their head by accident. It's the result of a business deciding what it wanted to be known for, then repeating it until the idea stuck.

That's brand positioning in a nutshell. Here's how I'd explain it, based on the marketing literature and the way the idea developed, with a simple statement you can fill in for your own business.

Brand positioning meaning

Positioning is the mental perception a customer holds of a product or brand. It isn't what you say about yourself on a website. It's the picture that forms in someone's head when they hear your name and compare you with the alternatives.

Methods for shaping that perception include product differentiation, advertising, market segmentation and the wider marketing mix. In practice, brand positioning means choosing the place you want to occupy in your customers' minds and making your choices point towards it.

Where brand positioning came from

The origins are a little unclear, and the idea may have emerged from advertising after the First World War. Al Ries and Jack Trout, both former advertising executives, are usually credited with popularising it. Trout wrote about positioning in Industrial Marketing in 1969, and the pair wrote about it in Advertising Age in 1972.

Their 1981 book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind described positioning as an organised system for finding a window in the mind. Some scholars also credit David Ogilvy with developing the idea in the mid-1950s, with examples such as Dove in 1957, positioned as a toilet bar for women with dry skin.

Brand positioning inside segmentation and targeting

Positioning is the third step of the segmentation, targeting and positioning approach, often shortened to STP. First you divide the market into groups of people with similar needs. Then you choose which group to serve. Only then do you decide how your brand should be seen by that group.

That order matters. A position chosen before you know who you're talking to tends to be a slogan with nobody listening.

Three kinds of brand positioning

Type	What it speaks to	Everyday example
Functional	Solving problems or providing benefits	A tool known for doing one job reliably
Symbolic	Self-image and a sense of belonging	A clothing label that says something about who you are
Experiential	Sensory or mental stimulation	A shop that's known for how it feels to walk into

Most strong brands lean on one of these first and support it with the others, instead of trying to claim all three equally.

What goes in a brand positioning statement

A positioning statement is an internal sentence or short paragraph, not a tagline. A typical one covers six things:

• The target customer.
• The market need or opportunity.
• The product name and category.
• The key benefit.
• The main competitive alternative.
• The main point of difference.

Here's a fill-in-the-blanks version: for [target customer] who need [market need], [brand] is a [category] that gives [key benefit]. Unlike [alternative], it [point of difference]. The example usually used to illustrate this is Volvo, positioned on safety and prestige for upper-income car buyers.

Mapping where your brand sits against rivals

A perceptual map is a diagram of how customers mentally place brands within a category. Traditionally two variables are chosen, and survey respondents place brands on them, then the averaged results are plotted. The point is to spot gaps in the market that a brand could own.

You don't need a research team to borrow the idea. Draw a simple two-axis grid on paper, pick two things your customers care about, and mark where you and your competitors honestly sit. If everyone is crowded in one corner, an empty one is worth a look.

Brand positioning shows up in many places

Your position isn't held in one document. It shows in the words on your site, the way you answer emails, the packaging, the places you advertise and the products you leave out. A poster on a high street is one example, and I've covered how that works in out-of-home advertising.

It also shows in how a product is introduced. Software companies that let people try the product first are often positioning on the experience itself, which I explain in product-led growth.

When brand positioning needs to change

New entrants, shifting customer preferences or structural changes in a market can make a position stop working. The marketing literature describes three responses: strengthen the current position, reposition the brand, or establish a new position. Repositioning is high risk but sometimes necessary.

One historical example is Lux soap in 1915, when the agency J. Walter Thompson broadened its positioning from woollen garments to all fine fabrics and moved it upmarket.

Common brand positioning mistakes

• Describing the product instead of the customer's problem.
• Claiming to be for everyone, so nobody feels addressed.
• Copying a competitor's wording instead of finding a difference.
• Changing the message every few months before it has time to stick.
• Writing a statement and never using it to make decisions.

Sharing your brand positioning experience

If you work on brand strategy and have a view on how positioning plays out in real businesses, there's a place to put it in front of other marketers.

Brand strategists can find branding blogs that welcome contributor articles on my list.

Frequently asked questions

Is brand positioning the same as a slogan?

No. Positioning is the perception you want customers to hold, and a slogan is one way of expressing it. The positioning statement is usually an internal document that guides decisions.

Who came up with positioning in marketing?

Al Ries and Jack Trout are often credited with popularising it, with Trout writing about it in 1969 and their book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind appearing in 1981. Some scholars credit David Ogilvy in the mid-1950s.

What is a positioning statement?

It's a short internal statement covering the target customer, the market need, the product and category, the key benefit, the main alternative and the point of difference.

What are the three types of positioning?

The literature describes functional positioning, which solves problems, symbolic positioning, which speaks to self-image, and experiential positioning, which offers sensory or mental stimulation.

Can a brand change its positioning?

Yes. A brand can strengthen its current position, reposition, or establish a new one, although repositioning is considered high risk.