These are two related but distinct things, and mixing them up creates strategic confusion.
Brand identity is the collection of visual and verbal elements that make a company recognisable: the logo, colour palette, typography, tone of voice, naming conventions, and how all of these behave consistently across touchpoints. Brand identity answers the question: what does this company look and sound like?
Brand positioning is the strategic claim a company stakes in the minds of its target buyers relative to alternatives. It answers: what does this company stand for, who is it for, and why should a buyer choose it over competitors? Positioning is not visible in the logo — it's expressed through what the company chooses to say, what it emphasises, and what it declines to claim.
The relationship between them: positioning should precede identity. The visual and verbal choices in a brand identity should be the output of positioning decisions, not the input to them. A company that has defined its positioning clearly — that it's the enterprise-grade option for mid-market B2B SaaS teams, say — can brief a designer to produce an identity that looks and feels enterprise-grade, modern, and credible to a CMO. Without that positioning clarity, the designer is making aesthetic guesses.
In practice, many B2B companies have invested in brand identity work (a polished logo, clean brand guidelines) without doing the underlying positioning work. The result is a brand that looks professional but doesn't say anything specific — it could belong to any company in the category. The identity is tight; the positioning is absent. That's a strategy problem that more design work won't fix.
