Brand Positioning: What is Brand Positioning?

​I know.

You have been looking for this definition for so long.

In reality, if you have been doing it, you didn’t read my previous articles…

I know.

You want me to clarify and better explain what is brand positioning so that you do not need to study it on your own and having me repeating the same concept over and over again will let you memorise it better than before.

However…

The purpose of this article isn’t to give you a conceptual explanation of what brand positioning is using a more or less easy to understand conceptual framework.

But…

You might need this article before deepening your knowledge in the ancient and sacred art of brand positioning, which is neither an art nor sacred.

 What is brand positioning, then?

Brand positioning is a science.

Why brand positioning is a science?

Brand positioning is a science because it deals with a biochemical infrastructure namely called BRAIN.

If the human brain is a biochemical infrastructure by definition, it means that (deductively speaking) it is subjected to the most basic laws and principles of chemistry and physics.

A brand positioning strategy is a methodological process oriented to generate specific outputs once the brain has been compelled to deal with certain inputs.

Brand positioning is the creation of new patterns that later become well defined memorised images in the brain that has been subjected to the above mentioned methodological input-output process.

Aware that the human brain is a biochemical infrastructure, we have a clear advantage: we can undoubtedly state that human behaviour is (to a certain extent) predictable.

Being brand positioning a science and not an art, brand positioning is based on a method.

Like marketing, brand positioning is a discipline, a process of methodical practices that applied on a daily basis with full awareness lead to specific results.

I know.

The requirements you read on most of the marketing vacancies all around the world is being highly creative because you need to split test many times until you get customer acquisition right, am I wrong?

Let me make you a question...

Does inflated split testing certify the existence of a method in place or the reality that who is operating in marketing doesn’t have any clue in what he is doing?

“Let’s try this and we will see” isn’t a method.

“Well, that guy did this and converted 15% in two months” is a method.

If you aren’t still enough convinced about my definition of marketing and brand positioning let me give you a sufficient list of practices that if not made by being faithful to a method will undoubtedly cause you problems.

Building a plane requires a method.

Building the roof of a house requires a method.

Building the engine of a car requires a method.

Landing with a plane requires a method.

Driving a car safely requires a method.

Shooting correctly with a gun requires a method.

Winning a battle requires a method.

Closing a face to face sales negotiation requires a method.

Building a road requires a method.

Manufacturing a smartphone requires a method.

Designing a motorbike requires a method.

Doing parachuting requires a method.

Producing olive oil requires a method.

Cooking lasagne requires a method.

Smoking a cigarette requires a method.

Preparing an exam requires a method.

Getting dressed for a ball requires a method.

Preparing the perfect Long Island requires a method.

Conquering the heart of a girl requires a method.

Budgeting monthly expenses requires a method.

Recruiting requires a method.

Investing money requires a method.

Even having a child, in spite of all the creativity you can involve, requires a method.

Why shouldn’t marketing or branding involve the correct use of a method?

Do the universal laws and principles of chemistry and physics collapse in a black hall when marketing and branding are executed?

I don’t think so, do you?

Once we have explained that marketing and branding (what is marketing if not a long term process of branding?) are a discipline that can just operate efficiently once they have become operative methodically and not randomly, we just need to explain what is intended to be a METHOD.

What is a method?

A method is a set of tactics that in the short/medium/long term lead toward the attainment of specific results and that is generally defined as a strategy.

Indeed, a strategy is a set of tactics that are put in place on a daily basis to achieve a given result.

Let’s make it even clearer with an example.

What would happen to you, as an entrepreneur, if your accountant starts getting creative?

I will describe it to you in two simple steps:

1. You get sentenced to pay a fine.
2. You get sentenced to end up in jail.

Thus, why shouldn’t you let your accountant get creative in managing your money while you ask your marketing department to include it as a paramount feature of the overall strategy in your company?

Why should your marketing department or manager be given the responsibility of reinventing the wheel while there are extremely successful practices that have been applied by those who have achieved outstanding results in what they do and which you just can integrate in your company?

Why should you spend money and time to split test while you could save that money and time because someone else has already done it for you?

Brand positioning is a science.

Does it involve creativity?

Yes. Absolutely…

But what kind of creativity?

Creativity that is in place within a method, a well defined process with specific inputs generated in order to get given outputs.

Brand positioning is a science that by definition must stay in the constraints of a method with the aim to create a peculiar set of synaptic connections that take time to form and consolidate (sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes decades).

Brand positioning is a science.

Do not mess up with it.