If understanding the market is about understanding yourself to set your business strategy while also understanding your customers and their needs and wants, then positioning is about what you do to make those two things meet up. The purpose of positioning is to help buyers to quickly understand your offering, so when they are searching for solutions to buy, they can identify why your brand is relevant for the job they are trying to get...
It is increasingly accepted that a brand is not only the elements such as the logo, website, product, etc, but is also the values, beliefs, mission, purpose, behavior, principles. Using this definition of brand we might rethink how we consider a brand.
Behavioral and marketing science have identified that building more mentally available brand associations is the primary purpose of marketing. But it is not the only way to build these associations.
Strong brands make credible, relevant, and distinctive brand promises. Even more importantly, they fulfill these every day.
There was a period between about 2016-2017 where many brands seemed to conflate purpose and positioning.
