Brand positioning: the statement and the perceptual map

Brand positioning is the place a brand chooses to occupy in its audience’s mind compared with competitors. It answers three questions: who the brand is for, what it offers, why it’s different. You write it in one sentence, the positioning statement, and check it with a perceptual map showing where competitors sit and where the gaps are.

What positioning is

Every sector has many competitors selling similar things. Positioning answers the question: why should anyone choose us? The idea was made famous by American advertising executives Al Ries and Jack Trout, first in a series of articles in 1972 and then in the book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981): people receive too many messages, so a brand must link itself to one precise, simple idea.

Two classic examples often quoted in marketing books:

• Volvo tied its name to a single idea for decades: safety.
• Avis, second in car rental behind Hertz, turned second place into a reason to choose it in 1962 with the slogan “We try harder”.

The formula

For [audience], [brand] is the [category] that [difference], because [proof].

This sentence is called a positioning statement.

• Audience: a specific group, not “everyone”.
• Category: which “shelf” the brand sits on.
• Difference: what it offers that competitors don’t, and that matters to that audience.
• Proof (reason to believe): a verifiable fact that makes the difference credible.

How to find your positioning, in 3 steps

1. Choose the audience

Start from customer data. At the fictional tea shop Five Leaf a survey shows almost half of customers (46%) drink tea every day and want to understand what they buy.

2. Look at competitors

Put them in a table, with the things that matter to the audience:

	Price	Explanations	Organic
Big chain	low	few	partly
Tea boutique	high	for experts	yes
Marketplace	low-mid	none	mixed

The gap: organic tea explained simply, at a mid-range price. The same table can be drawn as a perceptual map (see below).

3. Find the proof

A fact anyone can check: “every tea has a guide”, “everything is certified organic”.

The perceptual map: how to build one

A perceptual map (or positioning map) is a chart with two axes and competitors plotted as dots. It shows where the market is crowded and where there are gaps.

1. Choose the two axes: the two features that matter most to the audience when choosing (from surveys, reviews, interviews). For tea: price (low → high) and explanations (none → many).
2. List 4-8 competitors, direct and indirect.
3. Score each one on both axes, from 1 to 10, ideally with data (average prices, analysis of product pages) or customers’ opinions, not just yours.
4. Plot the dots and look at the empty areas.
5. Ask whether the gap has an audience: sometimes a space is empty because nobody wants it.

For Five Leaf the map shows the big chain bottom left (low price, few explanations), the boutique top right (high price, expert explanations), the marketplace bottom left. The gap is centre-right: mid-range price, lots of simple explanations.

The most common positioning strategies

Strategy	What it focuses on	Example sentence
Attribute	A product feature	“The tea that comes with a brewing guide”
Price and quality	Value for money	“Boutique tea at supermarket prices”
Use or occasion	When or how it’s used	“Herbal teas for the evening”
Audience	Who it’s for	“Tea for beginners”
Competitor	Comparison with a known player	“Cheaper than the boutique, clearer than the chain”
Values	What the brand believes in	“Tea that pays growers fairly”

The result

For people who drink tea every day and want to understand what they buy, Five Leaf is the online shop of organic teas and herbal infusions that explains every tea simply, because each product has its own guide and everything is certified organic.

How to test it

1. Competitor test: could the big chain sign it? No.
2. Proof test: can it be verified? Yes.
3. Choice test: does it say who we don’t talk to? Yes, rare-tea experts.
4. Consistency test: do price, website, packaging and customer service confirm the sentence? If the website explains nothing, the positioning stays on paper.

The most common mistakes

• Trying to talk to everyone: a positioning without a precise audience guides no decisions.
• Differences everyone claims: “quality”, “passion”, “customer care”.
• Promises without proof: “the best in the country” can’t be proven.
• Changing every year: positioning works over the long term.

Positioning is the basis of brand identity and tone of voice, and it goes into the brand guidelines.

Sources

• Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, McGraw-Hill, 1981