Brand Positioning Strategy: Owning a Place in the Mind
How a brand positioning strategy works as a set of associations held in memory: parity and difference, the frame of reference, the argument over entry points, repositioning and testing.
Answer to the question
What is a brand positioning strategy?
A brand positioning strategy is a plan for which associations a brand will try to own in buyers' memory, in which buying situations and against which alternatives. It sets the frame of reference, the points of parity and the point of difference.
Key takeaways
- A brand positioning strategy chooses which associations a brand will try to own in buyers' memory, in which situations and against which alternatives.
- Mita Sujan and James Bettman reported in 1989, across four studies, that a brand seen as strongly discrepant tended to take a niche position and one seen as moderately discrepant a general position.
- John Hauser and Birger Wernerfelt noted in 1989 that consumers choose from a relevant set of brands and that advertising can lead them to treat a brand as relevant.
- Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp and Andrew Ehrenberg reported in 2007 low perceived differentiation between brands across many categories in two countries, while customers still bought.
- Byron Sharp and John Dawes found in 2001 that differentiation seems to stem mainly from distribution and awareness, and occasionally from design.
A buyer keeps no shelf for a brand in memory, only a loose set of associations. A brand positioning strategy chooses which of those associations to build and which to leave to rivals.
Where does a position live?
A position is held by buyers, not by the brand. The textbook Consumer Behaviour, by Cathy M. Neal, Pascale G. Quester and Del I. Hawkins, treats brand image as the schema consumers carry for a brand and positioning as the deliberate aim to hold a defined image against competitors in a chosen segment.
The authors add that the marketing mix has to stay consistent for the aim to land, and that a position is easy to misjudge unless it is tested with consumers to see how they actually read it.
That puts a brand positioning strategy in a different place from a slogan. A slogan states a position. The brand positioning strategy decides which associations the brand will try to own, in which buying situations and against which alternatives, and then arranges everything buyers see and meet so that the same few associations are met again and again. Positioning is one part of the wider plan covered in What Is Brand Strategy With Examples, the memory view of a brand sits in What Is Branding The Psychology Behind Strong Brands, and the split between branding and strategy work is set out in Branding Agency vs Brand Strategy Agency.
Parity, difference and the frame of reference
Planning teams usually sort associations into two kinds. Points of parity are the associations a brand needs simply to be accepted as a member of its category. Points of difference are the ones it wants buyers to link with it and with no rival, the reason to pick this member over another. These terms are a planning convention and not a research finding, and their use is practical. A missing point of parity gets a brand dropped before any comparison begins, and a point of difference with no parity beneath it reads as a curiosity.
Take an invented bicycle workshop in a small town, a hypothetical example and not a real business. It must first show that it mends punctures, brakes and gears competently, which is parity. Only then can its difference register, repairs finished while the owner waits on a stool by the door.
The two interact. The 1989 experiments by Mita Sujan and James R. Bettman on schema-based processing found that where a brand sits within its category depends on how different buyers judge it to be. A brand seen as strongly discrepant tended to take a niche, subtyped position, while one seen as moderately discrepant tended to take a general, moderately differentiated position.
Judgements of discrepancy depended on how far the brand differed on an attribute and on whether that information appeared in a single advertisement or was spread across several. Read as an interpretation and not as a forecast, the size of a stated difference and the way it is delivered help decide whether buyers file a brand as a member with a twist or as something apart.
The frame of reference is the set of alternatives a buyer holds in mind when judging the brand. Choice rarely starts from every option in a category. An analysis of choice from a relevant set of brands, by John R. Hauser and Birger Wernerfelt, noted that advertising can lead consumers to treat a brand as relevant. Getting into the set is therefore a prior task, and the frame chosen by a brand positioning strategy decides which set it is trying to enter.
The workshop could frame itself against other repair shops, against buying a new bicycle, or against fixing the problem alone on a weekend. Each frame brings its own parity points and its own comparisons. Against other shops the difference is speed. Against a new purchase the difference is the low cost of keeping a good frame running. The same service reads quite differently under each, so the choice is made once, in writing, before any copy is drafted.
The invented workshop under each frame, for illustration only:
| Frame | Parity buyers expect | Difference to lead with |
|---|---|---|
| Other repair shops | Competent punctures, brakes and gears | Repairs finished while the owner waits |
| Buying a new bicycle | A safe, rideable result | The low cost of keeping a good frame running |
| Fixing it alone at the weekend | Clear instructions and the right parts | Skilled hands and a weekend kept free |
Difference against entry points: the argument
Two views of what a position should do sit side by side in the field, and each has evidence behind it.
The first view holds that a brand should win a distinct association, so that buyers who weigh options have a reason to prefer it. Sujan and Bettman's results fit this view, since the perceived difference shaped the brand's place in the category. Differentiation, as Byron Sharp and John Dawes defined it in a 2001 review, is a brand outperforming rivals on one or more features so that customers become less sensitive to its other features, which can leave the firm room to capture more of the value in an exchange.
The second view holds that brands grow chiefly by being easy to think of and easy to buy. Sharp's How Brands Grow builds on the idea of category entry points, the needs, occasions and cues that bring a category to mind. A brand linked to many of them is available in more of a buyer's moments than a brand linked to one. Perceived differentiation between brands was low across many categories in two countries, Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp and Andrew Ehrenberg reported in 2007, and customers still bought.
Sharp and Dawes had observed that where differentiation does appear, it seems to come mainly from distribution and awareness, occasionally from design, and that differences in functional features at brand level are less common because competitors tend to match them.
The evidence does not force a choice, and a brand positioning strategy can use both. Whether movement in entry-point measures predicts later growth is not settled, and the case for a single sharp difference rests on experiments with a different purpose. A workable plan keeps one stable core association for the difference and several situational links for availability.
For the workshop, the core association is repairs while you wait, and its entry points are the puncture on a commute, the check before the school term, the tune before a weekend ride, the repair after a fall and the service before a sale. One association carries the difference, and five situations carry the reach.
When a position has to change
Repositioning is a deliberate change of the position a brand holds, and the textbook treats it as a marketing decision to be made with evidence about how buyers currently see the brand. Buyers change, rivals crowd a space and categories drift, so a position that fitted five years ago may now sit in a crowded corner or a thinning one.
The Sujan and Bettman findings point to a careful method. If the size of a difference changes how buyers file a brand, a large leap risks landing in a niche that is smaller than intended. Our suggestion, which is practice and not a finding, is to keep the parity associations buyers already credit, move one association at a time, and repeat the delivery of the new association over many exposures before moving the next.
Picture the workshop once known for racing machines, in a town that now rides to work. It adds commuter reliability as the new lead association while keeping the stool by the door and the wait-while-you-watch service buyers already know.
How to test a brand positioning strategy
A brand positioning strategy that is never tested stays a hypothesis. The textbook stresses checking how consumers read the position, and the checks are inexpensive. One short questionnaire, run with a fresh sample before and after any change, covers most of them.
| Check | Question it answers | How to run it | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Situation recall | Does the brand come to mind in the situations it targets? | Ask buyers, in their own words, which brands they would think of in each situation | Look for the brand in the situations the plan names |
| Shortlist | Does the brand enter the relevant set? | Ask which brands buyers would consider for the next purchase | Compare the share who include the brand with its rivals' |
| Perceptual map | Where does the brand sit relative to rivals? | Collect similarity judgements, then place brands on two axes buyers use | Check who sits closest and whether the intended gap exists |
| Parity | Is the brand accepted as a category member? | Ask buyers to rate the basic category attributes for each brand | Treat any gap on a basic attribute as the first fix |
| Repeat | Did the change move anything? | Repeat the same questions with a new sample | Compare with the earlier figures, not with an ideal |
The perceptual map comes from the textbook's account of how positions are measured, which builds the map from consumers' similarity judgements. Because the 2007 paper found perceived differences between brands to be small, a sensible reading looks for movement against the brand's own earlier figures, not for large gaps between rivals.
Write the position as one sentence, list the situations it should bring to mind, run the same short questions with new buyers each season, and change one association at a time, so that every change can be read against a clean baseline.
Common questions
What is a brand positioning strategy?
A brand positioning strategy is a plan for which associations a brand will try to own in buyers' memory, in which buying situations and against which alternatives. It sets the frame of reference, the points of parity and the point of difference, and tells every channel what to repeat.
What is the difference between positioning and a slogan?
A slogan is a line that states a position. The position is the set of associations buyers actually hold, and the strategy is the plan for building them. A good slogan can express a position, but it cannot create one without consistent delivery behind it.
What are points of parity and points of difference?
Points of parity are the associations a brand needs to be accepted in its category. Points of difference are the associations it wants buyers to link with it and not with rivals. Both are planning terms and not research findings.
How do you test whether a position is working?
Ask a fresh sample of buyers which brands come to mind in each target situation, which they would shortlist and how they rate the basic category attributes. Repeat the same questions after any change and compare with your own earlier figures.
Sources
Neal, C. M., Quester, P. G., & Hawkins, D. I. Consumer Behaviour. Seed book; vault hub Books/Consumer Behaviour.
Sharp, B. How Brands Grow. Vault hub Books/How Brands Grow.
Sujan, M., & Bettman, J. R. (1989). “The effects of brand positioning strategies on consumers' brand and category perceptions: Some insights from schema research.” Journal of Marketing Research, 26(4). doi:10.1177/002224378902600407 https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378902600407
Hauser, J. R., & Wernerfelt, B. (1989). “The competitive implications of relevant-set/response analysis.” Journal of Marketing Research, 26(4). doi:10.1177/002224378902600402 https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378902600402
Sharp, B., & Dawes, J. (2001). “What is differentiation and how does it work?” Journal of Marketing Management, 17(7-8). doi:10.1362/026725701323366809 https://doi.org/10.1362/026725701323366809
Romaniuk, J., Sharp, B., & Ehrenberg, A. (2007). “Evidence concerning the importance of perceived brand differentiation.” Australasian Marketing Journal, 15(2). doi:10.1016/S1441-3582(07)70042-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S1441-3582(07)70042-3