Kotler and Armstrong define positioning as arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive and desirable place, relative to competing products, in the minds of target consumers.

The place is in the buyer's head, not in the company's documents. It is measured against the competitors that buyer is weighing up at the same time. And it has to be somewhere the buyer wants to go, which is a separate question from what the company would most like to be known for.

Positioning is the third of the three decisions marketing strategy is built on, and it cannot be made until segmentation and targeting have been. Until the company knows which buyers it serves, there is no set of minds to occupy a place in, and no set of competitors to be measured against.

Three Things That Get Mistaken for Positioning

A tagline. A tagline expresses a position. Changing it does not change where the company sits in a buyer's mind, because that place was built by what the company sold, to whom, at what price, with what service, over years.

A feature list. Kotler and Armstrong define positioning by the place the offering occupies relative to competing products, not by the specification. Two companies can ship near-identical features and hold different places in a buyer's mind, usually because one is known for a particular kind of customer and the other is not.

A messaging document. The document records the decision. Buyers never read it. What they see is the product, the price, the sales conversation, the implementation and the advertising, and the position is whatever those add up to.

Positioning Is Decided Per Segment

One position for the whole market is the default in B2B, and it is usually the reason the position says nothing. Different segments buy the same product for different reasons and compare it against different alternatives.

Take a scheduling product sold to hospitals and to logistics companies. The hospital is trying to keep clinical staff on shift within safe hours, and it compares the product against the agency staffing it already pays for. The logistics company is trying to cut overtime, and it compares the product against a spreadsheet and a supervisor. The same product, two different frames of reference, two different points of difference, two different proofs. A single statement that covers both will say the product improves scheduling efficiency, which neither buyer will act on.

A company can hold one broad brand position and a separate, sharper position for each target segment beneath it. What does not work is one statement stretched until it fits everyone.

What a Positioning Statement Contains

The Darden School's positioning note gives a structure that forces the four decisions into the open: among a named target market, the brand is the one within a stated frame of reference that offers a specific point of difference, because of a stated reason to believe.

The target market. Which segment this position is for. If the answer is everyone the company sells to, the statement is a brand line rather than a position.

The frame of reference. What the buyer thinks of the product as, and therefore what they compare it against. This is the part B2B companies most often get wrong, because the frame the company uses is a product category and the frame the buyer uses is a job to be done. A buyer choosing between a new system and hiring two more people is in a different frame from a buyer choosing between two systems.

The point of difference. What the company offers within that frame that the alternatives do not. One thing, not a list. A statement with four points of difference is asking the buyer to remember four things about a company they think about twice a year.

The reason to believe. Why the buyer should accept the claim. In B2B this is a customer result, a reference from a company like theirs, a demonstration, a certification or a guarantee with teeth. A claim with no reason to believe attached is a claim the sales team will stop making once buyers start questioning it.

Six Tests a Position Has to Pass

The Darden note sets out six criteria for vetting a positioning statement. Run a draft against all six before anyone builds a campaign on it.

Relevance. Do buyers care about this? A point of difference the company is proud of and buyers are indifferent to wins nothing.

Clarity. Will buyers understand it? A position that needs a paragraph of explanation will not survive being repeated by a salesperson or a partner.

Credibility. Will buyers believe it? Coming from a company they have not heard of, a large claim needs more proof than a modest one.

Uniqueness. From the buyer's point of view, does it set the company apart from its competitors in a way that matters? The test is the buyer's view, not the marketing team's.

Attainability. Can the company deliver, and are its claims consistent with how it actually performs? A company positioned on responsiveness with a four-day support queue is teaching its customers that it does not mean what it says.

Sustainability. Can the position be held over time? Positions are built slowly, which means one that has to be abandoned in a year never became a position at all.

Being Recognised and Being Different Are Not the Same Thing

Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute argue that buyers care less about product differences than marketers assume, and that being easy to recognise does more work than being believed superior.

Distinctiveness is whether a buyer can tell which company an advertisement came from. Differentiation is whether they believe the product is meaningfully better. The research points at the first one carrying most of the weight.

This does not remove the need to decide a position. It changes what the company does with it. A position still has to be chosen, because it determines what the company builds, what it proves and what it says. But the assets that carry it, the colours, the logo, the shapes, the phrases, the presenter, have to be used consistently enough that a buyer attributes the advertising to the right company. Distinctive assets that change every campaign hand the benefit of the work to whoever the buyer thinks the advertising came from.

When the Position Will Not Hold, Go Back to Targeting

Sometimes a segment is chosen and no defensible position exists in it. An entrenched competitor already owns the thing buyers care about, and the company cannot credibly claim it or deliver it.

The answer is to go back to the targeting decision and choose a different segment, not to write a position the company cannot hold. A claim that fails on credibility or attainability will be found out by the buyers it was aimed at, and the cost of that lands on the sales team.

That reversal is normal and it is why the three decisions are worth making before a campaign is planned rather than during one. Going back to targeting costs a week in a strategy process. It costs a quarter once media is booked.

Sources

• Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Principles of Marketing. Source of the definition of positioning as arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive and desirable place, relative to competing products, in the minds of target consumers.
• "Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy", Darden Business Publishing, University of Virginia, UV1425, revised December 2009. Source of the positioning statement structure of target market, frame of reference, point of difference and reason to believe, and of the six criteria for vetting a positioning statement: relevance, clarity, credibility, uniqueness, attainability and sustainability.
• Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, on differentiation and distinctiveness. Source of the distinction between being recognisable and being believed to be superior.