Why Aetech Selected A Single Positioning

Why Do We Have to Choose Just One?

The reason many companies choose Slack is because "Slack = advanced business communication." Similarly, Figma stands for "unified prototyping collaboration," and Linear represents "issue tracking for development teams." These brands are powerful not because they are good at many things, but because a single, clear reason is firmly established in the minds of purchasing decision-makers.

In fact, Slack has expanded its scope to include Huddles, Canvas, and workflow automation. Figma has moved beyond prototyping to launch presentation features that replace PPT, and is further striving to position itself as a tool that replaces Adobe. However, the primary reason customers choose these brands remains rooted in a single, powerful positioning.

Many people fear being locked into a single positioning. However, a single powerful positioning can build trust with customers, which in turn serves as a foundation of credibility for expansion. In fact, attempting to convey multiple positionings simultaneously is more likely to result in customers remembering nothing at all.

The Real Reason for Hesitating

When we first met and spoke with Aetech, several different definitions of the brand existed.

• A company combining AI and robotics technology

• A company increasing recycling rates

• A company leading the digital transformation of the waste industry

All of these were true. The problem was that because there was no incorrect statement, it made making a decision even more difficult. The need for a single positioning was agreed upon internally, but they were hesitant to make a decision due to the fear that choosing one would mean losing other opportunities.

The Need for an Objective Third-Party Perspective

This is exactly why an external agency is necessary. When a single positioning is chosen, our role is to persuade internal staff who are concerned about the other things that must be given up, and to guide them step-by-step in the right direction. This is possible because we are a third party that can solely focus on the client's success without internal conflicts of interest.

Additionally, one of the reasons this collaboration was possible with Aetech is that Volund is a team with hands-on experience in the IT industry. Although we are not engineers who understand every technical detail, our practical experience working in actual IT startups provided us with the expertise to understand how technology should be perceived within the client's context.

"The Essence of Recycling is Sorting"

We identified the core of the business through interviews with key persons, including the CEO. We then distilled it into a single sentence:

"The essence of recycling is sorting. If sorting is done well, everything else flows naturally, whether it is upstream collection or downstream regeneration."

In branding, the difficulty of positioning rarely stems from 'not finding the answer.' It is because people fear 'narrowing down existing answers into one.'

It was the same for Aetech. Each department required different content. The sales team wanted the branding to reflect messages that were effective in the field. Since these words worked on the ground, it was a reasonable demand. However, those messages were too diverse. To be used as cohesive branding language, they were too tailored to individual customer situations.

The technical team faced pressure from the opposite direction—the weight of publicly claiming to be technologically superior. However, objectively speaking, Aetech's technology was already recognized, having won the WIPO Award, which is considered the Nobel Prize of the patent world. We determined that the humility of the staff would actually be read as sincerity. A humble attitude that avoids exaggerating technical capabilities could be a way to build trust.

What we did was converge the contents of these conversations into a single question: What is the one thing Aetech can do best 5 and 10 years from now, and what is the single reason customers choose Aetech?

The answer was "innovative sorting." The messages the sales team delivered in the field and the development direction of the technical team were ultimately all about doing sorting better. This new positioning won the agreement of various internal teams, serving as the new cornerstone of branding activities toward a single, powerful positioning.

"We were able to dig deep and wide into our branding domain to define what kind of company we are. Previously, conducting marketing activities without clear positioning always felt unorganized. However, by working with Volund to address every detail of the branding, both the staff and the brand grew, and we were able to establish our future direction."

— Hyunhee Song, Senior Associate, BM Part, Strategic Planning Division

The Core of Positioning Strategy

Brand positioning is not something created from scratch. It is about choosing the one element that is strongest today and aligns with the future direction of the business. For Aetech, that was "innovative sorting." It is a positioning that represents their current core technology while serving as a basis of trust when expanding into related businesses in the future.

It is highly likely that your business already has the answer. You simply have not made the decision to narrow it down to one yet.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What is the single reason customers choose us?

• Does that reason align with what we currently do best?

• And does it align with the direction we want to head in 3 and 5 years from now?

If a single answer emerges for all three questions, your positioning is already there.

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How can we ensure that the positioning "Aetech = Innovative Sorting" does not end as just a slogan?

Please look forward to our upcoming article on B2B brand in-branding strategy (to be released).