I see positioning as the core foundation of not just brand strategy, but business strategy. If articulated clearly, it provides strategic direction for which products/services the brand should make, and how it communicates those offers to its audience. Ultimately, it answers the question, what do you want your audience to think of when they think about your brand?
Core to getting positioning right is developing a deep understanding and empathy for the specific audience the brand seeks to serve. Most importantly, identifying the desires / needs they already have. Without this knowledge, product development, brand strategy, communications, etc. are all set off in a false direction.
If done well, positioning makes a supposition about what a group of people already believe, and then creates products or services that will fit that ‘position’ in their minds. To use a famous example, for people that already believe that safety is the most important factor in a car purchase, Volvo makes vehicles that occupy the ‘safe car’ space in their minds.
This singularity in positioning is hugely important for two reasons: First, in today’s world of information/ad overload, people have little space in their minds to process new things. They need a shorthand for how to categorize what you make.
Second, because it’s based upon the desires / needs of a specific audience, it makes clear who the brand will choose not to focus upon. For example, because Volvo chooses not to focus on people who are interested in, say, high performance, they are not distracted by attempting to make them care about safety.
Over my career, I’ve gathered a robust set of methods, grounded in consumer, category and cultural understanding, that help brands to find an open ‘edge’ / position which drives strategic planning and business growth.