Premium positioning is easier to erode than to build. A note on distribution decisions that look accretive and are not.
Premium positioning is an accumulated asset. It is built through consistency in product, pricing, and the places a customer encounters the brand, and it is generally the most valuable thing on a consumer company's balance sheet without appearing there.
It is also unusually easy to spend. A discount channel, an unmanaged marketplace listing, or a licensing arrangement can each add revenue in the current year while reducing what the brand can charge in the next five.
The discipline is to evaluate distribution decisions against realised price over a multi-year horizon rather than incremental volume in a quarter. Very few accretive-looking channel decisions survive that test.
As owners we regard maintaining positioning as an operating obligation of the same order as maintaining a production facility. Neglect is not visible immediately, and it is expensive to reverse.