April Dunford vs Al Ries: Two Ways to Think About Positioning
Comparing April Dunford's Obviously Awesome with Al Ries and Jack Trout's Positioning: what each means by positioning, how the methods differ, and how to combine them.
Positioning is the word marketers use for what a brand stands for in a buyer's mind, and two names dominate how it is taught: Al Ries and Jack Trout, who popularized the term, and April Dunford, whose Obviously Awesome turned it into a team exercise. People compare them to decide whether to treat positioning as a matter of perception or a matter of process.
What is the core difference?
Ries and Trout start with the mind of the market. Buyers are overloaded, so they sort products into mental ladders. Your task is to win a rung, ideally the first, in a category that matters, and to avoid blurry, many-things messages.
Dunford starts with the product and its best customers. She asks what alternatives customers would use if you did not exist, what you do differently, and what that difference is worth to whom. Position follows from the answers.
One describes the terrain of perception. The other gives a route through it.
What do Ries and Trout say?
Al Ries and Jack Trout, advertising executives, introduced the term positioning in a series of articles in the early 1970s and in the book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981). Their argument is that communication is difficult in an over-communicated society, and that the way through is to own a simple idea in the prospect's mind.
Recurring themes are being first in a category, narrowing focus, and repositioning competitors. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (1993) packaged the ideas as rules. Ries's Focus (1996) pushed narrowness. Their work is opinionated and example-driven, with advertising cases from the mid-twentieth century onward.
What does Dunford say?
April Dunford, a technology marketing consultant, wrote Obviously Awesome (2019). Her sequence begins with competitive alternatives, then unique attributes, the value they enable, the customers who care most, and the market category that frames the offer. She also considers relevant trends.
She argues that many companies treat positioning as a branding exercise at the end of product development, when it should be a decision at the start of go-to-market. Sales Pitch (2021) extends the work. Her book is a practitioner's guide with stories from client work, and she runs workshops and advisory services.
How do they compare?
| Dimension | Dunford | Ries and Trout |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A set of decisions about context for a product | What you do to the mind of the prospect |
| Starting point | Competitive alternatives and best-fit customers | The prospect's mental ladder and the competition |
| Output | A positioning statement and supporting messaging | A simple idea owned in the market's mind |
| Use of category | Choose a frame that makes your value obvious | Be first, or create a category you can lead |
| Era and context | Modern technology and services | Mass-media advertising, later general marketing |
| Main risk | Treating the steps as a form to fill in | Over-narrow focus, or rules applied without context |
| Best known for | Obviously Awesome (2019) | Positioning (1981, Ries and Trout) |
When does each one fit?
Dunford fits when a team has a product and cannot explain why it is different, or when sales calls start with a long explanation. Her steps surface the customers and alternatives that make a position real.
Ries and Trout fit when the issue is how a brand is perceived across a crowded market: choosing which word to own, deciding what not to claim, or deciding whether a new category is worth creating.
Where the product is poorly understood internally, start with Dunford's process. Where the product is clear and the market is noisy, Ries and Trout's emphasis on focus is the more useful push.
What does this look like in practice?
A scheduling tool is used by clinics, gyms, and consultants and describes itself as flexible. A Dunford exercise asks what each group would use without it, finds that clinics rely on paper and phone and value reminders that cut no-shows, and concludes that clinics are the best fit.
A Ries-style view would then ask what the clinic buyer needs to hear to rank the tool first in a mental list. It might own appointment reminders for clinics rather than scheduling in general. The first step finds the position, and the second sharpens how it is stated and defended.
"My product is [description] and my current customers are [list]. First, using Dunford's sequence, identify competitive alternatives, unique attributes, the value they enable, and the best-fit customers. Then, in the spirit of Ries and Trout, suggest the one idea I should try to own in those customers' minds, what I should stop claiming, and which competitor's position that idea would weaken."
Why it works: the first half is a fact-based process, and the second forces a narrow, memorable result.
Can you use both together?
Yes. Dunford's process gives you the substance of a position, and Ries and Trout's thinking helps you state it so it sticks. The risk is that a position built on a wish rather than on customer evidence will not hold up under sales conversations.
Both reward saying less. A position that tries to cover every customer will not be owned by anyone.
"Here is my positioning statement: [paste]. List five objections a skeptical best-fit buyer might raise and how my current evidence answers each. Then tell me which part is a claim I cannot prove, and what customer proof or comparison would make it credible."
Why it works: a position is only as good as its proof, and objections show where the proof is missing.
For a related situation, see Launching When Nobody Knows Who You Are.
Where to go next
April Dunford sits in the Product Leader category and Al Ries and Jack Trout in Marketing & Sales. For the originals, read Obviously Awesome by Dunford and Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout. To test a landing page against what its traffic came for, Landing Page Teardown is a $79 tool built for it.
Frequently asked questions
Do Dunford and Ries mean the same thing by positioning?
They share the word and part of the idea, but not the method. Ries and Trout, in Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981), define it as what you do to the mind of the prospect: occupying a place in perception. Dunford, in Obviously Awesome (2019), treats it as a set of decisions about context, with a step-by-step process a team can run. Both care how buyers see you.
Who wrote Positioning, Ries or Trout?
Both. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind was written by Al Ries and Jack Trout, who popularized the term in a series of Advertising Age articles in the early 1970s before the book appeared in 1981. Attributing the book to Ries alone leaves out Trout, who died in 2017. Ries died in 2022. Their later books include The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (1993).
What are the components of Dunford's method?
In Obviously Awesome she lists competitive alternatives, unique attributes, the value those attributes enable, the customers who care most about that value, and the market category that frames the offer. The order matters: you begin with what customers would do without you, not with your feature list. A later book, Sales Pitch (2021), extends the work to messaging. Starting from customers' alternatives keeps the exercise tied to evidence rather than to how you wish to be seen.
Is Ries's approach out of date?
His core idea that buyers hold limited places in memory and that clear, narrow positions help brands is still widely cited. Critics note that Positioning was written when advertising was dominated by mass media, and that some examples are dated. Dunford's method adapts the idea to modern software and services, where buyers evaluate alternatives more actively. Reading the original text with a modern example in mind shows which of its ideas still hold and which belong to its time.
Which is better for a B2B software company?
The documented work does not rank them. Dunford's book was written with technology companies in mind and gives a process for a team. Ries and Trout give a more general view of perception and competition. Many B2B teams use Dunford's steps and borrow Ries's emphasis on focus and category leadership. Test any choice with real buyers. Whichever you begin with, check the result against what real buyers say in sales calls and win-loss conversations.
Can AI help with positioning?
It can help list alternatives, draft positioning statements, and challenge your claims against buyer objections. It cannot tell you how buyers actually perceive you. Give it real customer language and win-loss notes, and treat what it returns as hypotheses to check with the market. Ask it to play a skeptical buyer and challenge each claim, since that tends to reveal which parts of the position you cannot yet back up.
Written by Gareth Hoyle. Last updated 8 October 2026. Part of the authority.md guides library.
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