S 01 | Ep 59 Positioning vs . Branding Andy Cunningham , founder of Cunningham Collective , author of " Get to Aha !" and one of the key figures behind the launch of the original Apple Macintosh , joins the show to share decades of hard - won lessons on positioning , brand building , and what separates companies that define markets from those that get left behind . Andy opens by defining positioning as owning real estate in the mind of the customer , a specific and defensible space on the competitive landscape that only you can fill , and explains why the biggest mistake most technology companies make is assuming a great product will sell itself . Andy draws a sharp distinction between positioning and category creation , pushing back against the idea that companies can simply invent new categories through willpower and budget , and arguing instead that the most successful moves involve entering an existing space in the customer ' s brain and then differentiating from within it , the way Dodge created the minivan or Tesla created the Cybertruck as a subcategory of its own existing brand . She discusses the growing importance of emotional connection in B2B marketing , noting that while procurement and engineering cultures push companies toward purely data - driven decisions , the CMO and CHRO are often the only people inside large organizations thinking about the human needs that actually drive adoption and loyalty .