Publicity Is Not Positioning
Schiaparelli Spring 2026
Publicity no longer creates position on its own.
It is not 1994 anymore.
The world has changed. Social media changed it. Blogging changed it. Search changed it. And now LLMs have changed it again.
Everyone has a voice now.
Every founder has a voice.
And whether they realize it or not, the internet is constantly teaching the world who they are, what they do, how they think, and whether they are worth remembering.
That is the environment we are building inside now.
Which is why one of the biggest misconceptions I still see is this idea that publicity positions the brand.
It can support position.
It can amplify position.
It can accelerate perception.
But publicity alone is no longer the thing that creates position.
That is where people get it wrong.
A brand gets a feature in Vogue. On paper, that sounds like success. It sounds like arrival. It sounds like the kind of thing that should change everything.
But then someone Googles the brand.
And what comes up?
The Vogue article. Maybe a second mention somewhere else.
The brand’s own website is not ranking.
Its social presence is thin.
Its messaging is unclear.
Its story does not live anywhere with consistency.
LLMs do not understand who the brand is or what it actually does outside of the article.
So what did the Vogue feature really do?
Very little.
Because the brand has no voice of its own.
No narrative.
No positioning outside of borrowed authority.
And this is exactly why brands that move into publicity without clarity often end up fragmented.
They become visible before they become legible.
They get attention before they build understanding.
They are seen in the room, but they cannot hold what happens after someone leaves it.
That is not positioning.
That is exposure without infrastructure.
And infrastructure matters more now than ever.
Because in this current landscape, a brand is not only being understood through press.
It is being understood through:
its website,
its metadata,
its social language,
its interviews,
its visual identity,
its internal consistency,
its search presence,
and now the way LLMs interpret the total body of information available online.
That means the question is no longer:
“How do I get press?”
The question is:
“What is the internet learning about my brand every time it encounters me?”
Because if the answer is inconsistent, underdeveloped, or too dependent on third-party validation, then publicity does not strengthen the brand.
It exposes the gaps.
This is why some brands do not need publicity first.
They need language.
They need clarity.
They need a stronger narrative.
They need to understand who they are before asking the world to repeat their name.
Publicity should not be the thing that teaches a brand who it is.
The brand should know that before the first article ever lands.
Because publicity is no longer a substitute for positioning.
It is only powerful when there is already something solid there to amplify.
That is the difference.
A feature can create attention.
But attention alone does not create a voice.
It does not create a system.
It does not create cultural memory.
And it does not make a brand legible enough to survive outside the article that first named it.
That work has to happen first.
And if it does not, the brand may get visible, but it will not get anchored.
That is why I do not believe every brand needs PR first.
Some brands need to become understandable before they become public.
That is the real work.
With resonance.
Joseph
WHEN THE WORLD ENCOUNTERS YOUR BRAND, WHAT DOES IT LEARN ABOUT YOU WITHOUT BORROWING SOMEONE ELSE’S LANGUAGE FIRST?
