The Anatomy of a Brand: Positioning, Values and Personality
1. Brand positioning statement
The brand positioning statement is a description of the function and practice of the business. It has three ingredients:- Brand vision – the strategic goal, or big idea, for both the business and the customer. For example, Amazon: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
- Market positioning – a statement of the brand’s positioning in its market, and who it is aimed at – eg economy/luxury/mass/niche/family/teens/professionals. For example, Amazon: “A mass market, multi category brand offering a vast range of products that are always competitively priced for their marketplace and sold in volume”.
- Brand proposition – what the brand actually does, its functional proposition and story. For example, Amazon: “The world’s biggest online marketplace selling millions of products to millions of people; 24/7 access, superior search and browse technology, user reviews and many other sources of in-depth product information, Amazon.com offers a superior purchase experience.”
For (target customer) customers the world overAmazon is the (product type) online marketplaceThat (benefit) helps you to find everything you need at a price you can affordWe can do this because (reason to believe) we have 24/7 access, superior search and browse technology, user reviews and many other sources of in-depth product information
2. Brand values
The values of a brand determine its direction, behaviours and communications, and ultimately the customer’s experience of and relationship with your brand. Values are described in two ways:- Brand values – the values set on which the brand is based. For example, Amazon: Simplicity, Value, Convenience, Helpfulness.
- Brand meaning – the customer interpretation of the values. For example, Amazon: easy to find what I want, affordable for me, quick, friendly and personal, it makes my life easier.
3. Brand personality
Brand personality is important to define and understand as this will inform all customer communications. It provides clearcut guidelines for design and is an essential part of any design or communications brief. It helps to ensure that even when different people are working on different projects, the output is consistent with your brand. The brand personality in an expression of the brand values and determines the style and tone of brand experience.- Brand logo and identity – Design of your logo, and overall design style of your brand environment (website, shop, catalogue, etc) must be consistent with brand values and styled to appeal to your customer tribe. For example, if one of your values is ‘energy’ you might use bright colours as part of your brand colour palette.
- Brand voice – Defining your brand’s tone of voice will help to ensure that copywriting is always in a consistent style that is congruent with brand values. For example, for a brand that has ‘community’ as a core value, the copywriting style might be very friendly and inclusive and in first person voice. For a brand that has ‘exclusivity’ as a core value the style might be more formal and in a third person voice.
- Brand character – This is an overall description of the way the brand behaves, its defining characteristics for customers. It is an expression of the brand’s values and a way to define the overall approach to everything that you do.
How to Build a Sustainable Fashion Business

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