In today’s Two-Minute Tip video, we’re answering the question: What type of brand position do you have? Click below to watch the video, or keep scrolling to read the transcript.

Have you ever thought about what type of brand position you have? Are you sitting here thinking, “Wait, what?! There’s more than one type of brand position?!” 

Don’t worry, no need to panic. This isn’t a pop quiz. 

But your brand position is a critical element of your brand strategy, and it’s helpful to know which type of position you have (or want to create for your brand). 

So today we’re talking about what type of brand position you have. 

Let’s dig in. 

What is Brand Position?

So, what is a brand position? 

• It’s a critical element of your brand
• It’s the articulation of your differentiator
• It’s the distillation of your brand strategy elements to simplify it down to your stake in the ground
• It’s the thing that you want your business and your brand to be known for

3 Types of Brand Positions

There are three different types of brand positions. And we’ll go through each one of them below. 

But in order to figure out what type of brand position you have, you need to have a fairly decent understanding of your competitive landscape. And we’ll talk about why. 

So let’s talk about the 3 different types of brand positions. 

1. Parity Position

In a parity position, someone else in your industry (side note: this is why it’s really helpful to have a decent understanding of your competition) can claim the same or very similar position as you and THEY ALREADY HAVE. They’re in your industry, and they’re known for this position, and you want to be known for the same thing. So in order to capture some of that attention, you’re going to need some budget to grow your awareness — say it more often, say it in more places, and say it louder. 

2. Preemptive Position

A preemptive position is somewhat similar, where someone else in your industry can claim the same position, but they HAVEN’T DONE SO YET. So you can jump in, and you can claim it first. 

3. Truly Unique Position

A truly unique position is the strongest position that you can have because nobody else in your industry can take this position or claim it from you. It’s based on something that is inherently and truly unique about your brand, and your business. 

The caveat here is you can’t Frankenstein some things together to say something obscure like “I’m the only business in this zip code wearing this color on this day of the week who can do this special thing.” Truly unique brand positions, while they are incredibly strong, they need to be sustainable and inherently true, in the broadest sense. 

So, now that you know what a brand position is and the different types of positions you can have, when you look at your brand and your business, can you determine what type of brand position you have?