Positioning is not copywriting
If the words outrun the product, you have bought yourself an expensive disappointment. Positioning should be the shortest accurate description of real value.
27 January 2026 · 5 min read
Positioning gets handed to whoever writes well. That is understandable and usually wrong. Writing is where positioning becomes visible; it is not where positioning is decided.
The test
A position is doing work when it makes something harder. If your positioning does not cause you to decline a segment, drop a feature request, or lose a deal on purpose, it is decoration.
Internal coherence is not external resonance
Most positioning that fails externally was perfectly logical internally. It described the company's mental model of the market rather than the buyer's. The buyer does not hold your category map; they hold a problem and a short list of alternatives, some of which are spreadsheets and interns.
Where the words come from
The best positioning language I have written was not written. It was transcribed from customers describing what changed after they bought. That sentence is usually clumsier than the marketing version, and it converts better, because it is recognisable.
Where this shows up in the work
Keep reading
- Search is becoming an answer, and that is a product problemWhen an assistant answers instead of listing results, the question stops being 'how do we rank' and becomes 'what are we reliably known for'. That is decided upstream of marketing.
- Most growth problems are positioning problems wearing a costumeTraffic briefs, conversion briefs and churn briefs often describe the same underlying failure: the company has not established what it is for, and for whom.
- Personas describe people. Jobs explain decisions.JTBD is a lens, not an identity. Used well it explains why someone switched; used badly it becomes another artefact nobody opens.