Brand Positioning in Three Dimensions

The Brand Positioning Cube is my go-to tool (go-tool?) for — you guessed it — systematically positioning a brand by weighing in levels of consumer behavior, resulting in a clear(er) course for communication, design, and subsequently business.

Before I dive in, I should say that credit belongs to brighter minds at SARV International and Bex*communicatie. I’ve simply adopted it to justify design choices. Let me explain.

Connecting The Dots

So how does it work? Well, kicking off there are three psychological dimensions based on consumer behavior, namely:

1. Conation — purpose, desire; what the consumer is willing to do with the promise of excitement and adventure. Linguistically, this is represented by verbs.
2. Affection — emotion, feeling, or sentiment; what the consumer senses. Linguistically, this is represented by adjectives.
3. Cognition — rational perception; what the consumer thinks by reasoning and argumentation. Linguistically, this is represented by substantive nouns.

These make up the X, Y, and Z axes that form three-dimensional space like so: