Positioning by subtraction

A positioning technique that removes every claim a competitor could also make until only the ones that are really yours remain.

Positioning by subtraction starts from a brand's existing description and works backwards. You list every adjective, every "for X" clause, every promise on the homepage, every line in the sales deck. Then you cross out every item that any direct competitor could honestly claim too. Then you cross out every item that is aspirational rather than already true. What remains, if anything, is the positioning.

The exercise sounds destructive because it is. Most B2B brands are positioned by addition: layers of adjectives accumulated across product launches, market shifts, and new heads of marketing. Each layer is true, locally, in the moment it was added. Together they form a description that could apply to any of seven companies.

Subtraction forces the choice that addition avoids. If "intuitive, fast, secure, AI-powered, modern" all get crossed out — because four competitors can claim each of them — then either the brand owns one of those adjectives more specifically than competitors do (and the work is to prove that), or it owns something else nobody else can claim (and the work is to find it).

The output is rarely a slogan. It is usually one sentence: who the product is for, what specific pain it removes, and what the cost of choosing it instead of the alternative is. The sentence can usually fit in a tweet. It almost never reads as exciting on its own. It reads as defensible.

Use this when you are rewriting a homepage, preparing for a fundraising round, or trying to brief a designer on a brand refresh. The output is not the new brand. It is the floor underneath the new brand — the part that has to stay true even when the campaign changes.