We know it, you know it, heck, anyone associated with product marketing knows positioning and messaging form a vital part of the PMM function.

A well-positioned product will create the desired representation of your product in the minds of your target audience and highlight benefits and USPs, while compelling messaging is essential for how your market perceives your product/service - and your brand as a whole.

However, nailing the process is far from a stroll in the park. That’s why we wanted to celebrate these achievements with this award and give recognition to a product marketer who has managed to excel where many fall short.

We’re over the moon to confirm that the Positioning & Messaging Maestro of the Year for 2022 is…

Abhinav Joshi, Director of Product Marketing at Red Hat.

Here’s Abhinav’s story:

“Over the last 12 months, I have worked on elevating positioning and messaging for my focus product to target more of what use cases customers execute on versus just talking about feature and functionality of the product.
"The results have been amazing as we are now able to connect more closely with our customers and this has also made the job easier for the sales teams and marketing campaigns to target the right customers with the right positioning and messaging.
"Ultimately this is helping us grow sales pipeline and convert to higher revenue. Here is one of the several assets I authored for this initiative.
"In addition to the work I talked about here, I also manage a team of 11 PMMs and constantly act as a player-coach for their messaging/positioning and other PMM activities.”

Many, many congratulations again to all of those who also made our shortlist:

Michelle Picoto, Product Marketing Manager  at Deepstar Strategic

Roy Klein, Director of Product Marketing at Cloudify

Janani Nagarajan, Sr Director, Product Marketing at CrowdStrike

Ozzie Rodriguez, Director Product Marketing at CBS Sports / Paramount

Manwendra Mishra, Product Marketing Manager at Cardstack

Yaroslav Stepanenko, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Setapp

Emily Dumas, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Evernote

Bill Reed, Head of Product Marketing at Morphisec

But this wasn’t the only award that we honored this year. We also had six other hotly contested categories in the mix: