Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 246 pages
• Published by: McGraw-Hill
• Edition: 3rd Edition December 28, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0071359168
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0071359160
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Description
“Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning.”—David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

A handsome edition of the original 1981 text, this 20th Anniversary Edition makes available to business and marketing professionals—including tens of thousands of Ries and Trout groupies, worldwide—the work that forever changed the way marketing strategy is done. This new edition features commentary from the authors that offers fresh insight into why “positioning” a product in a prospective customer’s mind is still the most important strategy in business, and includes numerous examples of campaigns that followed, or didn’t follow, Ries and Trout’s thinking.

Back Cover Copy


"Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning."
­­David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

"One of the most important communication books I've ever read. I recommend it highly!"
­­Spencer Johnson, MD, co-author of The One Minute Manager

It shook up the world of marketing with all the force of a 20-megaton bomb, and now, two decades later, Positioning is still as fresh and, perhaps, even more relevant, for advertisers in the New Economy. To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the classic book that changed an industry, McGraw-Hill has reunited mavens of marketing Al Ries and Jack Trout to make available to another generation of advertisers the book that forever changed the way advertising is done.

The 20^th Anniversary Edition features commentary from the authors that offers fresh insight into why "positioning" a product in a prospective customer's mind is still the most important strategy in business. Ries and Trout look back over two decades of campaigns, offering penetrating analyses of some of the most phenomenal successes and unbelievable failures in advertising history.

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, over-communicated public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a "position" in a prospective customer's mind that reflects a company's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors. Writing in their trademark witty, fast-paced style, Ries and Trout explain how to position an industry leader so that it gets into people's minds and stays there, how to position a follower so that it can occupy a space not claimed by the leader, and how to avoid letting a second product ride on the coattails of an established one.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (Paperback) A classic in marketing how-tos, the authors explain the importance of offering something for sale that appeals to the buyer, not to the seller, creator, or manufacturer. The product is positioned relative to the consumer, and her needs and viewpoints of value. The basic theory is that you get into the mind of your consumer, and position your product accordingly. And on that point, almost anyone would have to agree. You will not find the gory details in this book that you'll need to execute a marketing plan, though, but the general theme is examined, as well as various positioning examples (everything from Kleenex to Heinz Ketchup - or was that pickles?). I was particularly disappointed about a lack of methodology to reach a positioning statement, other than some fairly broad "rules", lightly applied throughout the book. There were six questions at the end that were helpful, but did not constitute a rigorous method - well, any method really - to create a "position". If anything, I would have wished for the method that could be used to create positioning for a product, or to test a company's current positioning, rather than have as many examples of positioning failures. Some of the author's examples seemed contradictory, and especially when the authors claimed that brand extension amounts to a virtual see-saw - one product steals the brand identity from another (Heinz Ketchup vs. Heinz Pickles - who is Heinz!?). From hindsight, it can be seen that some brand extensions have been extremely successful, while others aren't. It should shock no one that people don't want to use baking soda as anti-perspirant, for instance, and therefore completely explaining why we use Arm & Hammer to cook and deodorize the refrigerator, but do not think of it as a personal hygiene brand. I can't think of anything that I would remove from the refrigerator and rub under my arms. In any case, this remains a quick, good read with short chapters. The examples illustrate the concepts, but you'll need to follow this up with other positioning and marketing examples in order to position your product within your industry.