Required Reading: Brand Positioning Can’t Be Added After Production
In Brand Power Built In: How Tech Products Really Win Hearts and Minds, brand strategist Lifang He delivers an end-to-end integrated product and brand strategy model to avoid the pitfalls that often tank promising innovations. She also reveals why some tech products win customers’ hearts and minds while others seem doomed to obscurity, and how to break down organizational silos, embed customer-centric thinking into company culture, and create products that naturally attract customers. CRM editor Leonard Klie spoke with He to get more insight.
CRM: What is brand positioning and why is it so important?
Lifang He: Most people think of positioning as a marketing tool, but its greatest value is strategic: It defines what you build, who it is for, and why it matters. Positioning is the North Star that guides product, brand, and go-to-market decisions across the organization. It helps customers understand why you matter and gives them a reason to care.
Today, as AI makes it easier than ever to build new products, standing out has never been harder. Without clear positioning, companies risk creating products that look and feel the same and fail to earn customers’ attention and trust.
How do companies achieve the ideal positioning?
Effective positioning begins with a deeper understanding of customers’ problems, motivations, and unmet needs. Whether you’re a startup entering an established category or a mature business pursuing growth, the key is identifying a customer need that others have overlooked.
When Rivian entered the electric vehicle market, being electric alone was no longer enough to differentiate. Rivian saw an opportunity to serve customers who wanted a vehicle that combined adventure, sustainability, and luxury. Its vision to become “the Patagonia of electric vehicles” became an internal decision-making filter that influenced what the company built and how it brought the brand to market.
How do brand identity, go-to-market strategy, and product development all fit into the positioning process?
This is the heart of the Brand Power Built In approach. Positioning is where the process starts, but it only creates value when product development, brand identity, and go-to-market strategy all bring that same vision to life.
Ring was first launched as Doorbot. The company’s breakthrough came from a single insight: Home security starts at the front door. That reframe expanded the doorbell narrative into a broader promise of home and neighborhood security. The tagline “Always Home” captured that positioning and became the foundation for its product road map, brand identity, and go-to-market strategy.
The story told through naming and visual identity is the same story told in product design, and the same story told in marketing campaigns and sales efforts. When those elements are aligned, they create a cohesive customer experience that builds differentiation, trust, and loyalty.
You suggest integrating brand equity and performance marketing. Why, and what benefit does that yield?
The most effective campaigns achieve double duty: They drive sales while also strengthening the brand. Performance marketing captures existing demand and drives short-term results, while brand building creates future demand by reinforcing your promise and helping customers understand why you matter.
Companies need both. When they work together as an integrated, full-funnel strategy, they drive current revenue and long-term growth. Strong companies lower customer acquisition costs, increase retention and lifetime value, and create sustainable demand that doesn’t depend entirely on paid advertising.
In addition to Ring and Rivian, you also cite PillPack as a company that got it right. What did it do differently?
Ring, Rivian, and PillPack built brand power into their products from the beginning. They didn’t treat brand as something to add after product development. Instead, they used brand thinking to shape what they built, how customers experienced it, and what they wanted to stand for.
That’s how Ring transformed a doorbell into a global home security brand, how Rivian broke through a crowded car market to become America’s most loved automobile brand, and how PillPack turned a frustrating medication management experience into something delightful.
What is the one message you want readers to take away from this book?
Brand and product are inseparable. Customers experience the features, the onboarding process, the reputation, the story, and the confidence it inspires as a single package. The product and the brand arrive together.
That’s why differentiation, trust, and customer connection can’t be added after a product is developed. They must be built into the product from the beginning.