Product positioning vs brand positioning: A strategic guide for Pro AV marketers
Here's a scenario you’ve probably lived: Your company launches a new digital signal processor with network connectivity. Sales asks marketing for a one-pager. Product management wants to emphasize the AoIP integration. Engineering is proud of the new algorithm that reduces feedback. Your CEO keeps talking about “the brand promise.” And you’re stuck trying to figure out what message actually matters to the integrator who’s specifying gear for a university lecture hall renovation.
This confusion usually stems from conflating product positioning with brand positioning. They’re related but fundamentally different, and mixing them up leads to messaging that tries to do everything and accomplishes nothing.
What brand positioning actually does
Brand positioning is your company’s reputation—the mental shortcut people use when they hear your name. It’s not what you say about yourself in marketing materials. It’s what customers, integrators, and consultants say when you’re not in the room. It’s built over years through product quality, customer service, technical support, and whether your product works as promised when installed.
For Pro AV companies, brand positioning typically clusters around a few attributes: technical innovation, reliability in mission-critical applications, ease of integration, vertical market expertise, or service quality. You can’t own all of these. Trying to be “the innovative, reliable, easy-to-use, affordable leader” just makes you forgettable.
What product positioning actually does
Product positioning is tactical. It’s how you position a specific product against alternatives to win a particular spec or purchase decision.
Take digital signal processors as an example. One manufacturer might position their DSP around AoIP integration and corporate meeting room applications. Another focuses on live sound and touring with emphasis on low latency. A third positions their DSP as part of a comprehensive ecosystem that extends beyond audio into video and control. All three might be excellent DSPs. Completely different positioning.
Product positioning answers: Why should someone choose this specific product over that specific alternative for this specific application? It’s narrow, competitive, and can shift as the market evolves or new competitors emerge.
Why the distinction matters
Most Pro AV marketing problems come from treating product positioning as a miniature version of brand positioning. You end up with product messaging that’s too vague (“industry-leading video quality”) or brand messaging that’s too specific (“our new software reduces configuration time by 40%”).
Your brand positioning should be stable. If you’re known for reliability, that shouldn’t change when you launch a new product category. But your product positioning needs to be flexible. That new product category might need completely different messaging to win against entrenched competitors.
A company might have a brand positioned around reliability and support for installed AV. But individual products have different positioning: cable products emphasize quality and availability, switchers focus on ease of programming, control processors highlight stability in 24/7 installations. The brand promise stays consistent; the product messaging adapts to specific competitive contexts.
Building product positioning that works
Start with the competitive set, not your product. Who are you really competing against for this spec? Not the entire category, but the specific three or four alternatives that show up on the same shortlist.
Then identify where you genuinely win. Not where you want to win or where you think you should win—where integrators actually choose you over alternatives. Talk to sales. Read lost deal reports. Ask integrators point-blank: “When you specify our product instead of the competition, why?”
The answers are often surprising. You might think your edge is technical performance, but integrators pick you because your support team actually answers the phone. Or you have better stock availability. Or your configuration software doesn’t require an expensive third-party tool.
Position around the real advantages, even if they’re not the sexy ones.
Building brand positioning that lasts
Brand positioning is harder because it requires organizational alignment. You can’t position as “easy to work with” if your technical support has a three-day response time. You can’t position as “innovation leaders” if your product roadmap is playing catch-up to competitors.
Effective brand positioning in Pro AV usually requires picking your lane:
Are you the premium option that handles complex, mission-critical installations where failure isn’t acceptable? That’s a valid position, but it means your pricing, support model, and sales approach all need to support that positioning.
Are you the value play that makes professional AV accessible to smaller projects and tighter budgets? Also valid, but you can’t simultaneously claim to be the high-end choice for stadiums and arenas.
Are you the specialist who owns a particular vertical or application? Many successful Pro AV companies have built strong brands by dominating worship, or education, or corporate, rather than trying to serve every market equally.
The brand positioning question isn’t “what do we want to be?” It’s “what can we credibly own based on our actual capabilities and market position?”
Where they connect
Product positioning should roll up to brand positioning, but with more specificity. If your brand is positioned around ease of integration, every product launch should emphasize integration-related features—compatibility, open standards, configuration tools, documentation quality.
But product positioning can also stretch the brand in new directions. A company known for premium installed sound might position a new product line toward value-conscious customers. As long as the quality and support are there, you’re not contradicting the brand, you’re expanding it.
The danger is when product positioning actively conflicts with brand positioning. If you’re known for reliability but launch products with rushed development and quality issues, you’re not only hurting that product, you’re damaging the brand that supports your entire portfolio.
Common mistakes
The biggest mistake is trying to differentiate on attributes that don’t matter to the buyer. Technical specs that sound impressive in the engineering lab but don’t translate to job site value. “Industry-leading” claims that every competitor makes. Feature lists without context about why those features matter.
Another common error: positioning based on what you do rather than what problems you solve. “We make networked audio processors” isn’t positioning. “We eliminate the complexity of mixing multiple microphones in conference rooms” is positioning.
And then there’s the classic trap of trying to be everything to everyone. “Ideal for corporate, education, government, healthcare, worship, hospitality, etc.” This tells me you haven’t actually figured out where you win. Pick your primary targets and position for them specifically.
Making it work
Good positioning requires honesty about your real strengths and actual competitive advantages. It requires alignment across the organization, not just marketing saying things, but the whole company delivering on them. And it requires discipline to stay focused even when you’re tempted to chase every opportunity with generic messaging.
Start by getting clear on what you’re actually good at. Not what you aspire to be good at, what you deliver today that makes customers choose you over alternatives. Build your positioning on that foundation, and you’ll have messaging that resonates because it reflects reality.