Brand standard · Experimental · October 2026

Why someone picks you

Where do you compete, and why would a buyer pick you there? Find out in about five minutes. Stop whenever you like.

Have a website? Start from it instead.

Start with your category ↓

Play it

How it works: three circles

Scott Lerman asks three questions of every candidate for a brand’s position: how far could it take us (Potential), do buyers care (Importance), and can we do it and prove it now (Ease). He scores each from one to five. We draw them instead, as three overlapping circles on a board. A card sits where you put it, and which circles hold its center decides which of four zones it belongs to. Moving a card an inch can change what it is, and that is where the arguments worth having start.

A plan of three overlapping circles, lettered A Potential (could take us far), B Importance (buyers care) and C Ease (we can do and prove it). The three overlaps are screened with fine lines. The middle, where all three meet, is the one yellow plane with a red square on it. Four numbered leaders name the zones: 1 Lead with is all three circles, 2 Unproven is Potential and Importance without Ease, 3 Overlooked is Potential and Ease without Importance, 4 Expected is Importance and Ease without Potential.A POTENTIALcould take us farB IMPORTANCEbuyers careC EASEwe can do and prove it1 LEAD WITH2 UNPROVEN3 OVERLOOKED4 EXPECTED

  1. 1 Lead with. In all three circles. These are the reasons to lead with, as long as each can show its reason to believe when it’s called.

  2. 2 Unproven. In Potential and Importance, but not Ease. Buyers care and it could take us far, but we can’t deliver or prove it yet. We work on these until we can.

  3. 3 Overlooked. In Potential and Ease, but not Importance. We can already do and prove these and they could take us far, but buyers don’t weigh them yet. We bring them forward before buyers ask.

  4. 4 Expected. In Importance and Ease, but not Potential. Every competitor offers these too, which Keller calls points of parity. We do them well and don’t lead with them.

The six rounds

  1. 1 Your category. Where are you competing, and who decides whether to hire you? Answer in their words, not yours.

  2. 2 Points of difference. List ten to twenty reasons someone might pick you over the rest of your category, each a plain claim you could say out loud and defend.

  3. 3 Points of parity. Cards any competitor could say word for word are set aside as expected, what Keller calls points of parity. The game flags the obvious ones as you type, and you flag the rest.

  4. 4 Sort. Place every card on the three circles. Only three fit in the middle, where all three overlap.

  5. 5 Reasons to believe. Each of the three in the middle gets one question: what shows it? A dated fact anyone can check, or a customer’s own words. A card with nothing to show moves to Unproven.

  6. 6 Say it. Write the reasons that stand as one sentence a buyer could repeat to someone else.

The third and fifth rounds do most of the work. In the third you set aside the reasons every competitor also gives, which Keller calls points of parity and which is also Lerman’s instruction to challenge platitudes. In the fifth you find the reasons to believe behind your best points of difference. The aim is to find the ones you can stand behind, and sometimes what turns up is that the position you already have is fine.

Where it comes from

Character comes first, then the position: the brand personality game finds three traits a company can be held to, and this finds the reason a buyer picks it. Potential, Importance and Ease, and the instruction to challenge platitudes, are from Scott Lerman’s Building Better Brands (HOW Books, 2013). The terms category, points of parity, points of difference and reasons to believe are Kevin Lane Keller’s, from Strategic Brand Management. The four zones, the three-card limit and the reasons-to-believe round are ours, and so is playing it as a game. It is new, and we have run it once on ourselves; if it tells you something we got wrong, we would like to hear it.