What’s Brand Positioning?

What is a Brand?

A brand is not your lipstick tube, your serum bottle, your compact mirror, or the day your highlighter got reposted by Rihanna. A brand is more than the pounds you splash on glossy billboards, boosted Instagram stories, or limited-edition holiday gift sets.

Put simply: branding is how people feel about your product.

Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman says “95% of our purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind,” leaving a slender 5% to inspect a shelf crammed with near-identical jars. For an organ that named itself, the brain’s shopping skills could use a little contouring.

Many elements shape how people feel about your product—logo, packaging, formula claims—but it’s when things turn intangible that the subconscious begins its makeover.

Memories, associations, heritage, colours, scent, voice, values. Crack open the perfume of the hippocampus and suddenly shoppers reach for a body lotion that smells like their mum’s favourite talc.

For me, it’s coconut hair oil. One breath of warm sweetness and I’m back in 2004, watching BET music videos with my brother on a Sunday with freshly greased scalps.

So, how do you elevate your brand to a place where the senses take control? That leads us to brand positioning.

What is Brand Positioning?

Brand positioning is working out where your brand sits in the beauty aisle so it separates from competitors and resonates with your target consumer.

How are some of the big brands using Brand Positioning?

Let’s look at the difference between Glossier and Estée Lauder. Both moisturise skin yet hold distinct personalities. Each satisfies an emotional need beyond basic hydration. Where Estée Lauder invites you to imagine timeless elegance on Fifth Avenue, Glossier whispers “You, but Dewier” with millennial-pink minimalism and bathroom-shelf selfies.

Your brand position should live in the overlap between consumer desires and what your formulas do best, while steering clear of the territory rivals own. Why concoct another serum doing the same thing as the rest? Differentiate or die.

Everyday Examples in the UK Market

Brand positioning isn’t just for legacy giants. Even Amazon best-sellers rely on clear, ownable positioning:

• COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Essence – minimalist packaging, science-driven claims, and cult credibility. COSRX positions itself as clinical yet approachable, turning “snail mucin” into a skincare hero instead of a turn-off.

• Maybelline Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara – positioned as affordable luxury with TikTok virality, sleek packaging, and “limitless lashes” storytelling. It thrives because it bridges mass-market accessibility with social-proof desirability.

• CeraVe Moisturising Cream – pharmacy-style packaging and dermatologist endorsements position it as trustworthy, everyday skincare. It’s not selling glamour; it’s selling reliability.

All three compete in crowded categories — yet their positioning strategy keeps them top of mind for UK shoppers.

Competing with Legacy Brands

There are already dozens of labels in every category, so you need a clear, ownable point of view to stand against legacy giants with first-mover advantage. Heritage icons like Nivea or Maybelline, whose jingles played before many indie founders were born, enjoy massive reach yet often struggle to pivot quickly.

Persuading a beauty lover to swap their classic red lipstick for an unfamiliar brick-red refill stick comes down to an unspoken pact in which your brand dazzles them with excitement—or at least fills a need the classic shade ignores. In Fenty’s case, it was the promise of a truly inclusive colour range that reshaped expectations.

If you launch something disruptive and carve a new niche, kudos on being first. You won’t hold that crown for long. When the category gains traction, conglomerates will copy the idea with their own twist.

Remember: you’re only vulnerable if your brand lacks a sharp stance. Drunk Elephant was once one of hundreds of “clean” skincare lines flooding Sephora, yet it stayed top of mind with punchy neon packaging, straight-talk ingredient philosophy, and a voice that cut through the clean-beauty chorus.

Refining Your Brand Positioning

As you refine your positioning, you’ll get intimate with your shopper. You’ll study their needs, preferences, and frustrations—insights that help craft an irresistible brand.

Strong positioning measures the marketplace, listens to the customer, and stretches the product to pave a magical experience.

That emotional scaffolding is as vital to your brand as micro-dosing your retinol or triple-milling your talc-free pressed powders. It’s show-business, not show-friends.

Connect first with your customer’s senses and stories, and their hands will know what to purchase.

Premium Branding vs. Mass Branding — Candle Example

Consider the scented-candle showdown between Diptyque and Bath & Body Works. Both sell wax and wicks, yet Diptyque’s Parisian storytelling and restrained black-and-white labels justify a premium, while Bath & Body Works floods malls with seasonal names like “Snowy Peach Berry” to trigger cosy nostalgia in bulk buyers.

When you master that feeling, you create the invisible glue that sticks in the subconscious long after the outer carton hits the recycling. It keeps your brand glowing season after season.

Final Thought

Brand positioning is the silent salesperson that works when you’re not in the room. It’s the reason one moisturiser earns cult status while another fades in clearance bins. Nail the feeling, own the story, and your customers will keep coming back — not just for the product, but for the brand.