Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind

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Positioning - The Battle For Your Mind is a classic in the marketing field. It resulted in a paradigm shift in the field when it was first published in the late 70s. The ideas in the book still remain relevant today. Summary Of The Book This updated edition of Positioning - The Battle For Your Mind comprises commentaries by the authors offering new insights and a fresh perspective. The authors look at the last two decades of marketing campaigns and select a few gems, both successes and failures - to illustrate their points. Positioning, according to the authors, is more about finding a niche in the prospects’ mind than positioning the product. The main idea has to be how to position a product or service in people’s mind so that it stays there. This is an age of information overload. People’s minds can only retain so much information, and anything that is not relevant to them is forgotten easily. So, according to the authors, a company and its marketing campaign have to concentrate on finding ways to remain in the memory of prospects. Being the first or the leader in any industry is the best way to gain attention. Coca Cola is identified with coke, Xerox with copy machines, and Kodak with photographs. The book states that if a company can’t get the leadership position, it has to find alternate strategies. The authors suggest a method to find an alternate position - finding a “hole” and filling it. They cite the example of the Volkswagen Beetle for this. While bigger is better was the main idea in the minds of car buyers, Volkswagen took the opposite route. Their ad said ‘Think Small’, and the Beetle became one of the iconic cars of all time. Another strategy they advocate is the idea of repositioning the competition. They illustrate this concept using the marketing campaign of Tylenol. Aspirin was the market leader in pain killers. Tylenol’s campaign focused on situations when Aspirin should not be taken, and positioned their drug as an alternative. The authors also explain the power of names. Of the four biggest domestic airlines in the US, Eastern Airlines always ranked fourth because the word “Eastern” created an idea of limitation in the consumer’s mind. The other airlines had more generic names - Trans-World, American, and United. In Positioning - The Battle For Your Mind , the authors provide detailed case studies of companies and campaigns that illustrate their points. They also show how these strategies can be applied to further an individual’s career, just like they can be used to promote a company or a product. About The Authors Al Ries is the Chairman of the consulting firm Ries & Ries that he co-founded with his daughter and partner, Laura Ries, in 1994. Al Ries is a marketing expert and consultant. Along with Jack Trout, he is credited with coning the term ‘positioning’ in the field of marketing. He has a degree in liberal arts from DePauw University and worked for a few years at General Electric in their advertising department. Ries then started an advertising consultancy firm with Jack Trout, and they worked together for around 26 years. In 1999, PR Week named him as one of the most influential people of the twentieth century in the public relations field. Jack Trout started his career with GE in their advertising department. He then left GE with Al Ries as they launched their own ad agency and consulting firm, Trout and Ries. He is currently president of the firm, Trout and Partners, which has offices around the world. Other books co-authored by them include Marketing Warfare, Bottom-up Marketing, and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.