Positioning, as popularized by the excelent book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Reis and Trout has somewhat fallen out of favor in recent years. The whole concept that company can “own” a word in the prospects mind, like volvo “owns” safety, and BMW “owns” driving just falls flat when you look at successful companies like google, yahoo, flickr, apple etc.
For many smaller companies trying to own a word in the prospects mind is much less important than owning a word or phrase on google. Companies that stake out a position on google are having to do a positioning excersise, but in many ways a much more pragmatic one, balancing what customers might actually type into a search engine, to what competitors are trying to own.
Positioning on google and classic brand positioning do share many things, but the good thing about positioning on google is that it is a far more measurable, and that is a good thing.
