A two-item checklist for deciding whether a genuine reposition — not just a messaging refresh — is warranted: change positioning specifically when (1) the value the product actually delivers to customers has changed, or (2) the company has moved into a different competitive or market category. Absent one of these, drift found during a Six-Month Positioning Checkpoint Cadence calls for a refresh, not a reposition.
The scale of a genuine reposition is illustrated by an early-career example from April Dunford: repositioning a product from desktop software to an embeddable mobile database didn't stop at new messaging — it restructured pricing (moving from a $200 direct-download price to bulk enterprise sales), changed the sales motion, and required new engineering work (sync capability) to make the product fit its new category. Repositioning is a business-model-level decision as much as a marketing one; see also Dunford's Five-Part Positioning Framework for Dunford's underlying method.