Michael Campion: know, when you're working with clients, you always try to find out what their points of parity are and what they believe their points of parity to be with their competition. But that's really just a vehicle, isn't it, to get to what are the points of difference. So talk to me about how you use positioning through the lens of points of parity and points of difference.

Bob Sheard: Yeah, so I'll combine the two things. This is very much more about the positioning. It's in the positioning sector of a brand's design. It's different from brand essence and product essence, which are more granular in respect to, specifically, the brand part of an entity and the product part of an entity. The points of parity really evolve around positioning and they help shed light on the points of difference. So parity is the values that a brand shares with its competitive set. The points of difference are the values that the brand have that are unique from the competitive set.

So really it's the points of parity that define what we call the sector high genes and it's the point of difference that defines what we call a compelling positional advantage. So if we look at three examples in each, it will help articulate it.

So in terms of the points of parity, if we take sort of Apple and Microsoft, they both share the personal computer as a point of parity. If we look at Adidas and Nike, they both share sportswear as their sector. And if we look in their outdoor space and we look at the own brands that exist in the outdoor space and Gore-Tex, they share sort of weatherproof technology as their points of parity. If we then say, okay, I get that now. How does that shine a light on our point of difference?

Then you can start to see, say, for example, with Apple and Microsoft both selling personal computers, but Microsoft really represents the establishment and the establishment in, obviously, personal computing software, but what Apple represented was the challenger to that establishment. And so you start to see the emotional difference start to emerge through the positioning exercise. When you look at Nike and Adidas, both in terms of sportswear as a point of parity, loosely, adidas is about participation and teams and Nike is about the individual and victory. So you can see the emotional difference emerging there. And that's how the interplay between the two things work.

Very, very, very important that it's brought into consideration when you're building a brand design.

Michael Campion: That brings a close to positioning, and we're now going to examine the different components of a brand's personality.