Positioning and Differentiation: How to Stand Out as a Brand?

There is signal and there is noise.
A signal is clear. Noise isn't.
As a brand you want to send a clear signal.
What Brands Can Learn from Radio Stations
How does radio work?
You turn on the radio and search for a channel.
The channel is somewhere between 87.5 and 108.0 MHz.
When you are looking for a channel that you like there are 2 things at play:
- Signal: What type of radio station is it? Do they play classic or rock? Are they discussing politics or can you call in?
- Position: What is the radio station's frequency? Where is it relative to other stations (92.3 vs. 101.5)?
Brands work in similar ways:
- Brand Promise: What is the brand about?
- Positioning: What is the brand's position relative to other brands?
Positioning: Difference from the Perspective of the Customer
Always remember: A brand is the most valuable piece of real estate in the world; a corner of someone's mind. - Sir John Hagarty
You can strategize, plan, execute as much as you want.
At the end of the day it counts what the customer thinks.
- Do they remember your brand?
- How do they think about your brand?

Bottomline: Positioning Is About Differentiation
Here are some associations that stem from clear positioning:
- Values: Patagonia - "Save the Planet"
- Limitation: Clubhouse - "Audio-only social network"
- Contrast: SpaceX - "Spacefaring civilization vs. Earth-bound civilization"
- Category Creation: Tesla - "Electric cars at scale"
- Personality: Oprah - "You get a car. And you get a car."
Make it easy for the customer: Clear signal + clear position.
📻
This post is an excerpt from my Brand Strategy Workshop where you learn how to build successful brands.
The self-paced online course contains 5 hours of video material and teaches you how to use the Brand Pyramid.

Get the Brand Strategy Workshop 🧰
You can hit me up on twitter. DMs are open.
If you are interested how I'm building an online education business you can sign up to my weekly newsletter.
Further Reading
- A Complete Guide to Brand Positioning (HubSpot)
- Signal-to-noise ratio (Wikipedia)
- Competition is for Losers (Peter Thiel // Stanford University)
- The Process of Building a Personal Monopoly (David Perell)
- 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (Al Ries; Jack Trout)
Short Excerpts from the Course
These posts are short snippets of the course curriculum 👇
- A Pragmatic Look at Branding: What Is a Brand?
- Touchpoints and Brand Strategy: How do We Build Associations?
- Positioning and Differentiation: How to Stand Out as a Brand?
- Brand Vision: What Is the World That Could Be?
- Brand Purpose: Why Bother?
- Brand Promise: How to Communicate in One Statement?
- Mission Statement: How Do You Do It?
- Brand Attributes: How Does the Brand Present Itself?
- Frame of Reference: Where Is the Brand Placed?
- Target Customer: Who Is Your Audience?
- Customer Need: What Is Their Real Job-to-be-Done?
- Value Proposition: What Are You Offering?
- Reasons-to-Believe: What Are Your Proof Points?