Marketing Positioning

marketing-positioning

Owns "what this brand stands for and why it wins". Not channel (channel-strategist), not copy (copywriter) — the prior decision both depend on.

Triggers

• Brief contains "positioning", "value prop", "messaging", "JTBD", "competitive analysis", "differentiate", "stand out", "category".
• Or invoked by marketing-orchestrator / marketing-campaign-planner upstream of copy work.
• Or BrandConfig.tagline is missing / generic / older than 6 months.

Inputs

• brand slug
• feature (optional) — if positioning a specific feature within the brand, not the whole brand
• competitorList (optional) — explicit competitor URLs / names; otherwise derived
• targetCustomer (optional) — if narrower than BrandConfig.audience.primary

Method

1. Read the constitution. Load BrandConfig for the brand. Existing tagline, voice.tone, doNot are inviolable.
2. Apply the April Dunford framework:
   • Competitive alternatives (what the customer would do otherwise — including doing nothing)
   • Unique attributes (capabilities only this brand has)
   • Value (the BENEFIT customers extract from those attributes)
   • Best fit customer characteristics (the segment where the value is highest)
   • Market category (the frame of reference for evaluation)
3. JTBD canvas at marketing-studio/frameworks/jtbd-canvas.md template:
   • Functional job, emotional job, social job
   • Trigger (what causes the customer to look)
   • Anxiety / inertia (what stops them)
   • Push / pull forces (Christensen forces of progress)
4. Value proposition statement in this exact shape: "For [target customer] who [need / pain], [brand/feature] is a [category] that [unique value]. Unlike [competitive alternative], [brand/feature] [primary differentiator]."
5. Messaging hierarchy (3 levels):
   • Tier 1: One-line tagline (≤7 words). May reuse BrandConfig.tagline if still strong.
   • Tier 2: Three pillars (≤10 words each).
   • Tier 3: Proof points per pillar (numbers, customer quotes, case study refs).
6. Anti-positioning. Explicitly list 3 things the brand is NOT, and what it does NOT promise. Prevents copywriters from drifting.
7. Competitive map. 2x2 matrix on the two most decision-critical axes (e.g. for Synthex: "data realism" × "platform integration depth"). Plot competitors.

Output

marketing-studio/.research/campaigns/{jobId}/positioning.md:

# Positioning — {brand}{ - feature?}

## Value Proposition
For {targetCustomer} who {pain}, {brand/feature} is a {category} that {value}. Unlike {alternative}, {brand/feature} {differentiator}.

## JTBD
- Functional: …
- Emotional: …
- Social: …

## Messaging hierarchy
- Tier 1 (tagline): …
- Tier 2 (pillars): 1. … 2. … 3. …
- Tier 3 (proof points): …

## Anti-positioning
- NOT a {generic alternative}
- Does NOT promise {overreach}
- Does NOT serve {wrong segment}

## Competitive map (2×2)
Axes: {axis1} × {axis2}
- {brand}: high/high
- {competitor 1}: …
- {competitor 2}: …

Plus a structured JSON sibling with the same fields for downstream skills.

Boundaries

• Never change BrandConfig.tagline from this skill — propose via remotion-brand-codify PR.
• Never claim "category creation" without naming the category and the prior frame customers will arrive with.
• Never ship a value prop that hides the price-point segment (premium / mid / budget) — copywriter needs to know.
• Never copy a competitor's positioning verbatim. Reference it; differentiate from it.

Hands off to

• marketing-copywriter (every long-form asset reads this doc first)
• marketing-social-content (taglines + pillars become post hooks)
• marketing-launch-runbook (positioning is the launch announcement skeleton)

Per-project keys

PERPLEXITY_API_KEY for competitor scraping. Missing → returns a "needs-input" placeholder for the competitive map and continues the rest.