The Positioning Guide

All Case Studies 🔍 Advertise With Us

Hey, it’s Alex. This newsletter is making its way from the Texas hill country, as I kick back, drinking some cold brew, before taking a walk down to the lake with the fam. Life’s good.

Today’s newsletter is about how to position your product in a crowded market and separate yourself from competitors.

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Significance Of Positioning In Marketing

The 4Ps of marketing: Product, Placement, Pricing, and Promotion.

One is missing. And more important than ever.

Positioning.

The subtitle of the book, Positioning by Al Ries & JackTrout, is a clear one-sentence definition of positioning:

“How to be seen and heard in the overcrowded marketplace.”

Strategic positioning allows a brand to stand out amidst competition, by finding the whitespace in the market where the brand can gain a competitive advantage.

A fresh example of how positioning is pivotal to a business's success is Liquid Death.

They sell Water - zero product differentiation compared to its competitors in an already crowded beverage industry.

Then how did it become a $700 million dollar brand in 5 years?

Yes, their packaging is eye-catching. Yes, their marketing is clever. But this all traces back to its unique positioning.

In a chart among its competitors, Liquid Death positions itself in a whitespace far away from others.

Hydration meets punk-rock cool.

🔍 How Starface Defines and Executes Its Positioning Strategy

Starface is a beauty brand founded in 2019. Their main product is acne pimple patches. And they’re expected to hit $50MM to $75MM in revenue in 2023.

The more impressive part?

Starface achieved this growth even though a competitor launched two years prior with the exact same product, aka Hero Cosmetics.

For context, Hero Cosmetics is known for bringing pimple patches from Korea into the US market and is the first mover in the category. The brand hit $100 million in revenue in 2021 and recently got acquired for $630 million.

On top of that, pimple patch is a very niche product category.

Despite all of this, Starface’s leveraged its positioning to carve out its own market. This is how they did it.

Study your category and where it is headed

Brand positioning doesn’t exist in a vacuum. How you position your brand is always relative to other players in the field.

Study your category. Analyze your competitors. And get an understanding of the existing landscape before pinning down where you should land.

Before Starface: Acne was depicted as something negative and taboo. So, existing products feel clinical.

Present industry direction: Gen Z looks for products with attitude, personality, and that amplify their self-expression.

Define key values and find a white space

Three questions to help you find the white space:

1. What brand values do your competitors share?

2. What values does the market gravitate towards?

3. What do you aspire to embody?

Put it on a grid. And explore the unexplored white spaces open for conquering.

Starface narrowed down its positioning through such an approach:

• Against existing belief about acne: positive vs. negative

• Against existing competitors: fun vs. functional

• Embrace cultural relevance: self-expression vs. conformity, belonging vs. isolation

Consistent positioning across marketing

Successful positioning requires consistency across marketing. This converts an impression into a lasting perception that clearly answers the question, "Why should I buy?”

Starface exemplifies this principle by incorporating its brand value ( fun, positivity, and self-expression) across all facets of its marketing efforts.

Design

The design across product and marketing features bright colors with smiley faces and playful bubble letters. The brand’s electric lemon color on store shelves pops with joy & fun compared to its competitors.

Product Ethos

Starface creates hype around pimple patches through viral collabs like Hello Kitty. Which put a positive spin on acne by positioning it as an opportunity for self-expression.

Messaging

The brand’s messaging centers around its brand mission to flip the negative perception of acne into positive embracement.

Common Pitfalls of Positioning

Positioning w/o a competitive advantage

A strategic positioning only works if your brand has enough points of differentiation.

Example: Quibi, the short-form video streaming service, failed because its positioning didn’t give it enough of a competitive advantage compared to its competitors,

Its original content quality was as good as Netflix’s. But the short-form videos are not as addicting as TikTok’s. And it failed to address the most important question, “Why do I need this”.

Positioning against the trend

Cultural relevance is a key element of effective positioning.

Example: Victoria's Secret witnessed a decline in market share as rival brands pivoted towards more inclusive and plus-sized offerings, while it stayed back promoting unrealistic beauty standards.

Positioning through words, not action

Liquid Death is perceived as cool not by them saying “We are the coolest water”. They say this through their content, messaging, and design.

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