Positioning a brand requires the brand manager to make a conscious choice on how he wants his brand to stand out amidst competing brands in the minds of consumers. He can do so by defining an identity for the brand, and subsequently pinpointing which identity traits are relevant to the target group (customer) and can differentiate the brand from competing brands. Apart from relevance and differentiation, positioning also has to add to a brand's power to stand out.

A handy tool for brand positioning is the BTC-model. This model identifies three parties in the positioning process: Brand, Target and Competition. These three entities form a common thread in the positioning issue: which aspects of the identity (company) should be emphasized in advertising, because they are relevant to the customer, and because they help the brand stand out in relation to the competition? This very straightforward model makes it clear for each brand that any positioning process starts with the question ‘Who am I’? (see also under 'identity and image').

Marketing professionals the world over struggle with the question how they can make a new brand stand out amidst established competitors. Research has shown that consumers think products with unique features will probably have been latecomers rather than pioneer brands. Even when the pioneer brand (first to market) also has unique attributes, consumers will not be very likely to associate these with the early entrant.

In 1993, Al Ries and Jack Trout presented their 22 immutable laws of marketing, which they based on their years of experience in the world of marketing. These laws relate to different aspects of marketing, but mainly to brand positioning. They explain the success, and with that the failure, of brands and products. Marketing professionals should, in the view of Ries & Trout, stick to these laws. Or in their words: ‘Violate them at your own risk’.

The Brand Key is a model that can be used to position brands. This model is used in a range of different organisations, comes in different shapes and sizes, and has different names (such as Brand Box), making its origin not entirely clear.  At Unilever, they use the model in the form presented in this article. The advantage of this model is that it profiles virtually every single relevant step in a positioning process; but the downside is that it overemphasizes the outside-in approach, making the model less suitable for brands where the inside-out approach is relevant (such as in the case of service providers).

It is becoming increasingly difficult to convey brand meaning through advertising. Many brand managers will tend to look for other media to get relatively complex messages across.  A wholly different solution lies in adjusting the brand concept. Brands with a simple message and clear language are winning the fight for the consumer's favour on more and more occasions. These winning brands have assumed a focus on consistency, simplicity and visualisation.

Rik Riezebos and Jaap van der Grinten’s book ‘Positioning’ (roadmap for targeted positioning) departs from two principles choices: firstly, the book was written from the viewpoint of the brand manager, and has therefore been shaped as a roadmap. Secondly, this book argues in favour of a positioning approach that starts from the inside: an inside-out approach instead of outside-in, by first analysing the corporate identity. That enables better fulfilment of external positioning, and ensures internal support.

Rossiter & Percy’s Brand Attitude Strategy Quadrants identify four different types of brands. A brand manager can use this model to decide on how to position his brand. Rossiter & Percy pinpoint two relevant factors: involvement (low vs. high) and purchase motive (negative vs. positive). This model is one of the models with the greatest level of scientific research underpinning its claims.

In the area of positioning, the Positioning Cube offers a unique and powerful model. The lines of this cube represent three dimensions of consumer behaviour: cognition, affection and conation (i.e.: thinking, feeling and doing). By grouping brands in these three dimensions, we get eight different types of brands. Examples are: the talk-of-the-town brand, the smart-choice brand, and the prototype brand. This model was developed by SARV International, and later refined by Bex* Communicatie.

The Profiler model splits the brand positioning process into three stages: an audit stage, positioning analysis, and execution planning. One of the unique traits of this model is that it also maps the mental roadblocks of a brand. This model was developed by Brand Capital and is based on means-end analysis theory.

Why are brands like Amazon, Google or Ikea so successful? Branding guru Allen Adamson’s answer to that question is because they are ‘simpler’ than other brands. It is all about exploiting a simple basic idea. Branding should add relevance and meaning to this basic idea, and subsequently spread it out over the remainder of the organisation and the market. In his book Brand Simple, Adamson also describes the Brand Simple top ten, containing guidelines on how brands can incorporate and develop this 'simple concept'.

Companies spend huge amounts of money on market research. No expense is spared to figure out what consumers want, and to use that insight to build a strong brand. That makes it all the more remarkable that over 90% of product innovations fail. Christensen, Cook and Hall put this down to the wrong approach to market segmentation, which they feel is in need of a shake-up. But many manufacturers have not yet cottoned on to that.

The models in this section of the EURIB Knowledge Resource Centre can be used to get a clear idea of a brand's best possible market position. All choices will eventually have to be formulated in one or two sentences, the so-called Brand Positioning Statement (BPS). The appended PDF lists the three core elements and the three additional elements of the BPS.