Competitor Positioning Analyzer

---
name: competitor-positioning-analyzer
description: Use when analyzing competitor positioning to find a wedge for your own brand. Triggers on "competitor positioning", "competitive analysis", "positioning analysis", "find our wedge".
---

# Competitor Positioning Analyzer

Most competitive analysis is a feature comparison spreadsheet. That tells you where you match, not where you can win. Positioning analysis is different — it maps how each competitor stakes a claim in the buyer's mind, then finds the unclaimed ground.

## Required inputs

1. **Your brand** — what you sell, primary audience
2. **Competitors to analyze** — typically 3-5 (more = noisier)
3. **Source material** for each:
   - Hero copy from homepage
   - Value props / pillars from product pages
   - Pricing page (if relevant)
   - Sample customer quotes
   - Recent ads if you have them
4. **Your current positioning** (to compare against the field)
5. **Where you're losing** — specific deals, demos, or content

If the user has only logos and high-level impressions, push back. Real analysis needs real copy.

## Analysis framework

For EACH competitor, extract:

### 1. Stated audience
Who do they say they're for? Specific role, company size, industry. If the answer is "everyone," that's a positioning weakness — note it.

### 2. Core claim (one sentence)
The single value prop. Distill their hero + subhead into one sentence:
- "[Brand] is the [category] for [audience] who want [outcome]."

### 3. Wedge or category
Are they playing as the:
- **Category leader** ("the standard for X")
- **Best-in-segment** ("the X built for Y")
- **Challenger** ("unlike legacy X")
- **Anti-establishment** ("the X built differently")
- **Generalist consolidator** ("everything you need in one place")

### 4. Proof types they lean on
- Logos / customer count
- Hard metrics
- Analyst reports (Gartner / Forrester)
- G2 / reviews
- Founder credibility / origin story
- Open source / community

### 5. Vocabulary fingerprint
What words recur across their site? "Platform" / "operating system" / "infrastructure" / "automation" / "intelligence." This reveals their mental model.

### 6. Audience signals
Who they reference, what use cases they show, what jobs the screenshots imply.

## Cross-competitor synthesis

Now compare across competitors:

### Where they're uniform
- Same audience claim → there's positioning sameness; whoever differentiates wins
- Same core word ("platform" / "AI-powered") → that word is dead, find another
- Same proof type → buyers are saturated on it

### Where they diverge
- Different audience → the segments are real; pick yours
- Different category claim → there's an active fight; you have to pick a side or stake new ground

### Unclaimed positioning
- Audiences nobody is targeting clearly
- Outcomes nobody is owning
- Tones / vibes nobody is occupying (everyone serious? you can be sharp/funny. Everyone playful? you can be the grown-up.)

## Find the wedge

Output 3 candidate wedges. For each:

1. **Wedge name** — short, descriptive
2. **The claim** — one sentence positioning statement
3. **Who it serves** — the audience this wedge wins
4. **Why it's defensible** — what about you supports this claim
5. **What you'd have to give up** — every wedge means saying no to other audiences
6. **Risk** — what could make this wedge wrong

Then recommend ONE wedge as the strongest, with rationale.

## Output structure

```
# Positioning Analysis: [Your Brand] vs [Competitors]

## The field
For each competitor:
- Stated audience
- Core claim
- Category posture
- Proof leaning
- Vocabulary fingerprint

## The map
A summary table or diagram showing where each competitor sits.

## What's uniform across the field
3-5 patterns where competitors all sound alike.

## What's contested
2-3 areas of active positioning fight.

## Unclaimed ground
3-5 opportunities nobody is owning clearly.

## Wedge recommendations
3 candidate wedges, ranked, with the recommended one detailed.

## Implications for your copy
3-5 specific changes to your hero, value props, or proof types based on the analysis.
```

## Anti-patterns

- Treating this as a feature comparison — features are tactical, positioning is strategic
- Recommending a wedge nobody can defend ("be the most innovative")
- Defining the wedge in terms of features rather than buyer mental models
- Skipping the "what you give up" — every real position has a tradeoff
- Picking a wedge because it's empty — sometimes ground is empty because nobody wants it

## Tone

- Direct. Don't soften observations to spare anyone's ego.
- Specific. "Competitor X owns the 'fastest' claim — pick a different axis" beats "they're competitive on speed."
- Honest about your weaknesses too — wedges built on lies don't hold under sales pressure.

## Output format

Markdown. End with:
1. The single positioning sentence the user should test against their team
2. The 3 places on their current site where the new wedge would change copy first
3. The 1 sales objection the new wedge resolves