Brand positioning research should make a business willing to change its mind.
That sounds straightforward until the founder has a favorite idea, the agency has developed three polished concepts and the survey asks customers which version they prefer. At that point, research can become a vote on the team’s writing rather than an investigation of the market.
A more useful starting question is less comfortable: what would we need to learn to decide that our preferred position is wrong?
Brand positioning research investigates the buying situations, alternatives, perceptions and sources of value that should inform a brand’s position. It combines evidence about customers with evidence about the offer and its competitive context. The objective is to make a defensible decision—not to collect approval for one already made.
A successful project may reveal that the message needs work. It may also reveal that the problem sits in the product, price, distribution or delivery model.
Key Takeaways
- Begin with a decision and the uncertainty preventing it, rather than a preferred research method.
- Investigate recent buying behavior before asking people to judge positioning concepts.
- Include buyers who chose alternatives, delayed a purchase or left the brand.
- Keep company claims, customer accounts, observed behavior and analyst interpretations separate.
- Test comprehension, credibility, relevance and actual choice as distinct questions.
- Document conflicting evidence and the conditions under which a proposed position would fail.
What Should the Research Help You Decide?
“Understand our customers” is a useful ambition, but too broad to guide a project on its own.
A decision might be whether to emphasize specialist expertise or operational convenience. Another could concern whether a product belongs in a familiar category or needs a more specific explanation.
Write down the competing options, what remains unknown and what evidence could change the choice. Connect the work to the wider brand positioning strategy so the findings have somewhere to go.
For a hypothetical reporting platform, the uncertainty might be whether buyers value detailed analysis or simply need a dependable monthly reporting process. Those possibilities require different product evidence, messaging and commercial commitments.
Do not assume they are mutually exclusive. Research may show that different buying situations require different emphasis, or that reliability is a prerequisite before advanced analysis matters.
Which Evidence Do You Need?
Use methods according to the question they can answer.
| Research question | Useful evidence | What that evidence cannot establish alone |
| Why did someone begin looking? | Interviews about a recent decision; contemporaneous notes | How frequently the situation occurs across the whole market |
| What alternatives were considered? | Buyer accounts, evaluation records and documented comparisons | Every potential competitor in the category |
| What do customers believe? | Appropriately designed perception research | Objective product performance |
| What can the offer deliver? | Product tests, service records and operational review | Whether buyers know or value the capability |
| Does the explanation make sense? | Comprehension testing with relevant participants | Purchase demand |
| Will the offer influence choice? | Relevant behavioral tests or carefully designed choice research | Guaranteed performance under every future condition |
Desk research, interviews and surveys can complement one another. They are not interchangeable routes to the same answer.
For example, a competitor’s public page can establish a published claim or listed feature at a particular time. It cannot establish what customers think of it. Likewise, a customer describing a product as reliable does not substitute for a technical reliability test.
Whom Should You Interview?
Recruit around the decisions you need to understand.
Current customers offer evidence about where the brand works. Recent lost prospects can explain alternatives and objections. Former customers may reveal a difference between the original promise and the experience. People who delayed the purchase can expose barriers that a comparison between suppliers would miss.
Keep those groups identifiable in the analysis. Combining them without context can conceal important differences.
Do not let convenience define the audience
Account managers may naturally suggest friendly, articulate customers. Those conversations can be valuable, but the resulting sample may exclude difficult implementations, unprofitable accounts or buyers who never engaged with sales.
Record who was eligible, how invitations were sent, who participated and which perspectives remain missing. A qualitative study can reveal patterns and hypotheses without claiming that its participants represent the whole market statistically.
Investigate B2B participants separately where needed
The user, purchaser and approver may have different concerns.
An employee might value ease of use. Procurement may care about contract conditions. A security reviewer may prevent a purchase even when the product meets the user’s needs.
Avoid inventing a single “customer voice” that resolves those differences. Explain which participant described each issue and where their influence entered the decision.
Which Interview Questions Reveal Useful Positioning Evidence?
Ask people to reconstruct something that happened.
Useful prompts include what first made the problem relevant, which options appeared, what the buyer investigated and what nearly stopped the decision. Ask for examples and clarify vague descriptions without supplying the preferred answer.
Government Digital Service guidance recommends open, neutral questions and a tested discussion guide for in-depth interviews. For brand research, the practical implication is to create room for a participant’s account before introducing the company’s proposed story.
Replace approval questions with event questions
“Would expert support make our offer more attractive?” invites an easy endorsement.
A more useful line of inquiry is: when did the participant last need help, what happened, what did the delay cost or interrupt, and how did they resolve it?
The answer may support an expert-service position. It may also show that better documentation, clearer compatibility information or a simpler product would address the problem more effectively.
Ask about alternatives without prompting the list
First establish what the person recalls considering. Then investigate details and, where appropriate, ask about additional options separately.
Positioning specialist April Dunford argues that competitive alternatives should reflect what a customer would otherwise do, rather than every company that could theoretically compete. That can include an existing process or a decision to take no action.
Keep the sequence of the questioning visible. A competitor remembered spontaneously is different evidence from one recognized after a prompt.
What Should You Research About Competitors?
Compare relevant offers under consistent conditions.
Record the product or service tier, market, date, purchase conditions and source. Look at the offer customers would actually evaluate rather than selecting a competitor’s weakest package against your most comprehensive one.
Investigate the practical comparison: capabilities, price structure, onboarding effort, service terms and the evidence behind major claims.
Distinguish “not found on the reviewed page” from “not offered.” Public information can be incomplete. Ask for clarification or state the uncertainty rather than converting missing information into a competitive advantage.
Examine what customers sacrifice when switching
A competitor may have weaker features yet remain attractive because staff know how to use it, the data is already there or the supplier is approved.
Document migration effort, retraining, purchasing requirements and the risk of disruption. These conditions may explain why an offer wins praise but fails to displace an established alternative.
Your value proposition must be considered alongside those costs. A useful benefit may still be insufficient to make a change worthwhile.
How Should You Test Positioning Concepts?
Use concepts to investigate an unresolved proposition, not to decorate a preferred answer.
Start with comparable descriptions. If one concept has a polished design and confident proof while another is a rough sentence, the result can reflect presentation quality rather than the strategic difference.
Pew Research Center’s survey guidance explains why wording and question order require care. In positioning research, preserve the exact questions and stimuli so reviewers can see what respondents actually judged.
Test comprehension first
Ask participants to describe the offer in their own words: what it does, who it appears to serve and what they would compare it with.
An attractive phrase may leave the category unclear. Resolve that before interpreting a high appeal score as strategic success.
Test credibility and relevance separately
Someone may understand a promise but doubt it. Another person may believe it and find it irrelevant to their current situation.
Ask what evidence would be needed and investigate why the promise matters—or does not. Do not collapse those different findings into a single average “concept score” without explaining what it represents.
Include the actual offer conditions
If a proposed position depends on a higher price, an implementation period or eligibility restrictions, include those conditions at the appropriate testing stage.
Testing a premium service as though it were free can produce enthusiasm for an offer the company cannot sell. Research into brand pricing power needs particular care in distinguishing stated appeal from behavior at a real price.
What Can a Worked Example Teach You?
Consider a fictional service company deciding whether to position itself around faster response times or specialist expertise. This example is an analysis exercise, not a report of completed research.
The team initially believes that faster response is the main opportunity. Its proposed survey asks whether customers would appreciate quicker replies.
A better research plan would distinguish three possibilities: customers wait too long for any reply, receive a quick reply that fails to resolve the problem, or cannot find the right specialist for unusual cases.
Those are different problems with different delivery costs.
The evidence plan might combine recent support cases, interviews about specific incidents and an operational review of resolution time and staffing. Concept testing could then evaluate the relevant offers with accurate service boundaries.
The company might ultimately emphasize speed, expertise or a clearer routing process. The purpose of the research is to make those outcomes possible, rather than validate “faster” because the team wrote it first.
How Do You Turn Research Into a Decision?
Maintain a finding record with four separate parts: the observation, its source, the interpretation and the proposed action.
A participant saying that implementation took longer than expected is an account. Concluding that onboarding uncertainty is a widespread purchase barrier is an interpretation requiring additional evidence. Advertising a guaranteed implementation timeline is a business commitment requiring more still.
Keeping those steps separate makes it easier to challenge an inference without discarding a useful observation.
Preserve contradictory findings
If experienced customers value flexibility while first-time buyers struggle with setup, record both. Investigate whether experience, product tier or buying situation explains the difference.
Avoid resolving disagreement by selecting the most memorable quotation. A vivid story can explain a finding, but it does not establish how common the experience is.
Define what remains uncertain
A recommendation can be useful without pretending to be final.
State the preferred direction, supporting evidence, practical requirements and what still needs testing. Identify the decision owner and the next measurement. If the business has chosen a position partly on judgment, label that judgment clearly.
What Should a Brand Positioning Research Brief Include?
Before commissioning the work, confirm:
- The decision the research must support and the alternatives under consideration.
- The uncertainties that could change that decision.
- The relevant buying situations, users and decision-makers.
- The recruitment method and perspectives likely to be missing.
- The evidence needed for perceptions, performance and commercial feasibility.
- Neutral interview questions and comparable concept descriptions.
- A plan for documenting exact wording, sources and analytic choices.
- Clear treatment of contradictory evidence and research limitations.
- The operational owners who must review the proposed promise.
- The next test, decision date and responsibility for follow-through.
Research earns its value when it changes what the business is willing to say or do. Sometimes that means finding a stronger message. Sometimes it means declining to make a promise until the offer is ready.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is brand positioning research the same as a brand awareness survey?
No. Awareness is one possible input. Positioning research also investigates buying situations, alternatives, perceptions, value, credibility and the offer’s ability to deliver.
How many customer interviews are enough?
There is no universal number. Plan around the range of decisions and participants you need to understand, review what new conversations are adding and document gaps. Interviews alone do not establish population-level prevalence.
Can you use competitor websites instead of customer research?
They can document public claims and offer details, but cannot establish how buyers perceive those claims or what they actually considered. Use them for the questions they can answer.
Should you choose the positioning concept with the highest appeal score?
Not automatically. Inspect understanding, credibility, audience relevance, tradeoffs, sampling limits and delivery feasibility. A popular concept can still promise something the business cannot sustainably provide.
