Brand Positioning · Frame of reference · Component
The category
What the customer files the brand under, in their words — which is frequently broader and less flattering than the industry definition.
The deliverable
What it is
Organisations define their category from the inside, by what they build. Customers define it from the outside, by what problem they were trying to solve, and the two rarely coincide.
The customer’s definition wins, because it determines what the brand is compared with and therefore what counts as good.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
The customer category
What customers say the brand is, unprompted.
3 attributes: Category · Segment · Source
LearnThe intended category
The category the organisation would prefer to be in.
2 attributes: Intended category · Reason
LearnThe distance
How far apart the two are, and whether that matters.
3 attributes: Distance · Consequence · Response
Learn
The customer’s category wins. Accepting it and competing well inside it is usually cheaper than reframing.
The other components in frame of reference
The comparison set
What they would actually do instead, including doing nothing — the set the brand is genuinely judged against.
LearnThe entry points
The situations that bring the category to mind at all — because a brand not retrieved at the moment of need is not in the consideration set.
Learn