What exactly is Brand Positioning

Brand positioning is one of the very few things that you cannot just learn by reading a book or watching a video.

It’s one of the very few skills that needs an endless amount of time and practice and patience to even get above average at it.

But I want to shed light on one of the most prominent gyaan from the internet in this area.

You’ve all read this at some point in your life.

Reading this will make you feel like you are a superhuman waiting to be unleashed. (But that you are)

This sentence has plenty of problems that doesn’t convey the true meaning of brand positioning.

If you get a water bottle at the gym, you will have to pay a massive cut to the gym owner.

Selling the same bottle at the movies brings in luxury taxes and also a cut to the theater and another upfront deal with the management to make you the exclusive water partner or whatever.

And finally, getting your bottle to the airlines means that it’s near close to impossible to sign a deal with the airlines to do the same. They will probably want you to give it at a price that your business cannot afford in return for brand exposure.

And you know, the best part? The government has made water free and not organization can just say that they only sell water. If you ask them for water, they must give it to you. 🙃

But the key takeaway here is that, BYOB! (bring your own bottle)

Sorry for digressing.

But this is not true brand positioning.

It is, the purpose of positioning your brand is to make clear to your consumers what you stand to offer and why you’re uniquely positioned to serve them.

And this can’t be just explained in one single line.

Positioning might be entirely different for a clothing store to a jewellery.

This is a real life example of El Mejor Coffee. (A company I built and sold)

In a crowded coffee market, we decided to do something that no one believed was possible.

We made a promise to “Roast and ground the beans only after the order is placed”

We did not lie to deceive people. But we did have a safe plan in place.

In our terms & conditions, we properly mentioned that it might take 3 business days to sometimes process your orders. Not hidden in some plain text. It was clear away mentioned before you can add anything to the cart.

But we did that and people were actually okay with it.

We did have a few different minute details like this that made the brand. We were probably the first company to launch coffee subscriptions, we printed your name on the lid so that you feel happy that we wish you every morning.

It’s the little things like this that made us stand out, and we could easily position ourselves as ‘the go-to coffee brand’

This is just one example of positioning. So do your research properly before implementing any strategies that you read or hear.

And a kind request to consultants, don’t write something for the sake of it. If you don’t know something, then learn.