Positioning Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Brief Summary

If you learn how to position your brand, you’ll be able to use your strengths to stand out from your competitors.

Understanding where your brand is positioned in comparison to your competitors is the key to your success. If you cannot be the first on the market, create a memorable brand name and look for gaps where you can thrive. A good marketing strategy that plays to your strengths will help you retain a place in the customer’s mind.

About the Author

Jack Trout was the founder of Trout and Partners, an international marketing strategy company. He was the author or co-author of several best-selling books including five with Al Ries.

As a pioneer of positioning theory, Trout has worked with an array of clients ranging from General Electric to Papa Johns. He worked with the United States Department of State to develop the Brand America campaign during the Iraq war. Trout died in 2017, aged 82.

Al Ries is the co-founder of Ries & Ries, an Atlanta-based consulting company. He has co-authored nine books, five of them with Jack Trout. He has been named one of the Top 10 Business Gurus by the Marketing Executives Networking Groups and in 2016, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.

Topics

Communication Skills Management & Leadership

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Key Insights

Positioning is everything. Without it, Coca-Cola and Apple would not be brands that are recognized globally. In today’s society, consumer products and information is produced at an extremely fast rate. If you want to be a successful brand, you have to rise above the noise and stand out. This is what positioning is all about.

It’s not just consumer products that use brand positioning. Politicians and public figures have become adept at building their brands too. Positioning can be used to promote almost everything from a political message to your own social media posts.

To position your brand, you must first understand where it exists in the consciousness of your target audience. Whether you are trying to influence a certain demographic or simply get your product seen by as many people as possible, understanding your market is key. To be successful you need to know your position, learn how to compete against the first position brand, and understand how to get into the mind of your audience.

To be a successful brand you need to be the first one that comes to mind.

Being first in the thoughts of your customer is essential to being successful. Think about iconic brands that you know. Brands like Coca-Cola and Kodak have strong marketing departments that have helped with their growth but it wasn’t the only reason for success. They became successful by being first.

When you’re a brand leader you are almost always placed above the fray of competition. You were there first so consequently, every other competitor is automatically compared to you. Even if someone comes up with a better product or service, the fact that you have been the primary brand will make it a lot harder for them to take your spot.

The first brand gets benefits that other brands that follow never experience. For one thing, if you’re the first brand, that can never be taken away. You’re the original. You may not be the best anymore but you have had longer market exposure and by default have become a trusted name. Even if another brand becomes bigger and better, it is rare that they will ever have the same position in the customer’s mind as the first brand.

If you’re not the first you have to find a way into the mind of the customer.

You know you don’t have the advantage of being first so now you have to think about how you can stay in the customer’s minds. One of the best approaches you can take is to look for the gap.

For example, when everyone was building bigger cars for the American market, Volkswagen launched the compact Beetle. Another good example is the Michelob brand. They entered a market that was filled with a number of cheaper, established competitors. They differentiated themselves by positioning their product as a premium beer brand. Both brands stood out because they found their own place by being purposefully different from their closest competitors.

If everyone is making one thing, then try and make the opposite. If everyone...