I really like this post, especially the opening. I agree with Josh’s point that large companies often think their positioning is emotional, but in reality, these elements tend to blur together—and that’s not a good thing. It usually doesn’t serve the company’s best interest.
In my experience, working primarily with large companies, I’ve seen how often they struggle to differentiate between category, brand, and positioning. I have plenty of thoughts on why this happens so frequently, but what really matters is the impact: misunderstanding these distinctions creates confusion and fractures within the organization, which can significantly hurt market performance.
What I’ve learned is that even the best companies often need help making sense of these three elements. They benefit from guidance on how they fit together and how to use them effectively—both internally and externally—to drive coherence and growth. Starting with simple, clear definitions is a great way to open up that conversation.
Yeah Marcello, the more complex the business the more difficult it is to pull these things apart. As I hinted at in my reply to Josh, one of my clients has a core product that is often conflated with the brand itself (from the customer’s POV). We have had to work really hard to be intentional about what aspect we are talking about so we don’t cross wires. But the company and the product share a lot of the same attributes, too, so it’s easy let the waters get muddy
How do Category and Positioning change, if at all, when the category is not defined yet? When the sector, industry, or segment is new? This is most stark in startups where often they are not clearly in one or the other but seem to be in between 2 different industries
I think what you’re asking is how do you make contrasts, when there are no other comparable products to make a contrast to? If that’s what you’re getting at, then we bump the contrast layer up from the product and approach it at the category level. We try to call out all the shortcomings of the category we are displacing, and make the case for why the new category is the right choice. Hope that helps!
Great post. I think the way you describe this is true in the world of startups and tech companies that are generally, say, less than 1000 people. As companies get bigger, these three things all start to intermingle. Maybe category strategy still stands out as different if it is holistic. But yeah in the large companies I personally know, they think of their positioning as emotional too. But the way you describe all this is perfect for tech startups all the way up to a certain size.
I know where you are coming from, some of my clients are over the 1,000 employee mark. I usually keep positioning constrained to the product level, and have discussions around emotional contrasts at the brand or category strategy level. But it’s never perfectly clean, especially when the brand and product are used synonymously!
I really like this post, especially the opening. I agree with Josh’s point that large companies often think their positioning is emotional, but in reality, these elements tend to blur together—and that’s not a good thing. It usually doesn’t serve the company’s best interest.
In my experience, working primarily with large companies, I’ve seen how often they struggle to differentiate between category, brand, and positioning. I have plenty of thoughts on why this happens so frequently, but what really matters is the impact: misunderstanding these distinctions creates confusion and fractures within the organization, which can significantly hurt market performance.
What I’ve learned is that even the best companies often need help making sense of these three elements. They benefit from guidance on how they fit together and how to use them effectively—both internally and externally—to drive coherence and growth. Starting with simple, clear definitions is a great way to open up that conversation.
Yeah Marcello, the more complex the business the more difficult it is to pull these things apart. As I hinted at in my reply to Josh, one of my clients has a core product that is often conflated with the brand itself (from the customer’s POV). We have had to work really hard to be intentional about what aspect we are talking about so we don’t cross wires. But the company and the product share a lot of the same attributes, too, so it’s easy let the waters get muddy
How do Category and Positioning change, if at all, when the category is not defined yet? When the sector, industry, or segment is new? This is most stark in startups where often they are not clearly in one or the other but seem to be in between 2 different industries
I think what you’re asking is how do you make contrasts, when there are no other comparable products to make a contrast to? If that’s what you’re getting at, then we bump the contrast layer up from the product and approach it at the category level. We try to call out all the shortcomings of the category we are displacing, and make the case for why the new category is the right choice. Hope that helps!
It does. Thanks
Great post. I think the way you describe this is true in the world of startups and tech companies that are generally, say, less than 1000 people. As companies get bigger, these three things all start to intermingle. Maybe category strategy still stands out as different if it is holistic. But yeah in the large companies I personally know, they think of their positioning as emotional too. But the way you describe all this is perfect for tech startups all the way up to a certain size.
I know where you are coming from, some of my clients are over the 1,000 employee mark. I usually keep positioning constrained to the product level, and have discussions around emotional contrasts at the brand or category strategy level. But it’s never perfectly clean, especially when the brand and product are used synonymously!