Positioning Is Context-Setting
Dunford's definition: positioning is the act of deliberately setting the context in which your product is best understood. Customers meet an unfamiliar product and their brain immediately asks: what is this like? The frame they land on determines what features they notice, what price feels fair, and who they compare you against.
Her favorite illustration is cake versus muffin. The same baked good reads as an indulgent dessert or an acceptable breakfast depending on what you call it. Nothing about the product changed. The context changed, and with it the buyer, the occasion, and the price.
Most companies never choose their context. They inherit one from how the product started, or from what the founder originally imagined building, and then wonder why buyers keep misjudging them.
“Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.”
Key idea
Positioning is not a tagline. It's deliberately choosing the frame of reference that makes your strengths obvious, because customers will assume a frame either way.