WTF is Cloud?

HOW FAKE POSITIONING EXPERTS WOULD HAVE KILLED “CLOUD”

A Case Study in Why Copywriters Masquerading as Strategists Fail at Mental Territory Ownership

THE BRIEF

It’s 2005.

You’re in a conference room with the world’s best “positioning experts.”

Here’s what you hand them:

“We have a new service. Instead of storing data on hard drives in your office, you store it on hard drives far away. In a building you’ll never see. Run by people you’ll never meet. You access it through the internet, which sometimes goes down. Oh, and you have to trust us with all your data.”

Watch what happens next.

THE FAKE EXPERT PLAYBOOK

Expert #1: The Value Prop Specialist

“Okay team, let’s start with the value proposition framework.”

Their Approach:
– “For enterprises seeking flexible data storage solutions…”
– “We are the leading provider of remote server infrastructure…”
– “That offers scalability, reliability, and accessibility…”
– “Unlike traditional on-premise storage, which is costly and inflexible…”

Why This Fails: This is what I call “the tactical default trap,” defaulting to value propositions because they seem concrete and actionable. But as the framework makes clear: “Positioning isn’t a value proposition or messaging framework. It’s the foundational lens through which you see the market.”