BRAND STRATEGY AND POSITIONING
One idea you can own, in a sentence you can defend.
Positioning is a choice about what you give up. Most brands refuse to make it, which is why category copy is interchangeable: everyone claims quality, service and innovation, because nobody wants to be unavailable to anyone. A position that costs you nothing is not a position. It is a description, and descriptions do not win comparisons.
So the work here is narrowing. I take the agreed business problem and the research findings, then test candidate positions against three questions: is it true today, could a competitor say it word for word, and would it still hold if your biggest rival copied your website tomorrow morning. Most candidates die on the second question, which is the point of asking it early.
What comes out is a short, boring-looking document. A frame of reference, a point of difference, the reasons anyone should believe it, and a written list of what you are conceding. Boring is deliberate — it is a decision record, not a mood piece, and every headline, ad and film after this gets checked against it.
WHAT I DO
- Positioning statement — one sentence in a fixed form: for whom, in what frame of reference, the difference, and the reason to believe it.
- Frame of reference call — the category you choose to be compared in, because the comparison set decides what counts as good.
- Point of difference with reasons to believe — the claim plus the specific evidence that stops it being another adjective.
- Trade-off list — what you are giving up and which buyers you are letting go, written down so nobody quietly takes it back.
- Candidate position review — the alternatives considered, each with the reason it was killed, so the argument is not re-run later.
- Copy-test sheet — the chosen claim set against competitor language to confirm a rival cannot lift it verbatim.
HOW I WORK
- 01
INHERIT
Start from the agreed business problem and the research findings instead of a blank page and a brainstorm.
- 02
NARROW
Draft several candidate positions and kill every one a competitor could claim word for word on their own site.
- 03
STRESS TEST
Check the survivor against current evidence, the trade-off it demands, and the sales objections it will create.
- 04
RECORD
Write the statement, the reasons to believe and the concessions into a one-page decision record you sign off.
BEST FOR
- Brands whose closest competitors could swap websites overnight and no buyer would notice the difference.
- Companies in a crowded category where price is quietly becoming the only argument left.
- Businesses that have changed what they actually sell but never changed how they frame it.
- Founders holding three good ideas about the brand and needing one of them chosen.
NOT THIS
- Not messaging. This decides the idea; turning it into pillars, voice and lines is Brand Messaging Architecture & Voice.
- Not the research itself. Competitor and buyer evidence comes from Market & Competitor Analysis and Customer Persona Research.
- Not a visual identity. No logo, palette or typographic direction is produced at this step.
THE PROOF
Published case studies from brand solutions work. Each one names the client and shows what was delivered.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
REST OF BRAND SOLUTIONS
MAKE A
WISH.
Tell me what you're building. I'll tell you how loud it can get.
- /01
YOU WRITE
Tell me what you're building and what's in the way. Two lines is enough.
- /02
WE TALK
A 30-minute call, booked within 7 days. Real questions, no pitch theatre.
- /03
YOU GET A PLAN
Scope, timeline and an honest number, usually within a week.