You can keep yourself from making most positioning gaffes if you will simply remember the following principles:

1. Positioning, first and foremost, is a noun, not a verb. That is, it is best understood as an attribute associated with a company or a product, and not as the marketing contortions that people go through to set up that association.

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Byron Sharp, whose How Brands Grow book has taken the marketing world by storm over the last decade, has some relevant things to say about purpose and positioning. Specifically, he argues that brands should shift away from positioning—thinking about how they line up against competitors—and towards salience: the “propensity to be noticed or come to... See more