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

By Al Ries and Jack Trout

Book Overview

"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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071359168
• ISBN13: 9780071359160
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Much More Than Marketing

Positioning is the idea that shook Madison Avenue to its core in the 1970s. Ries and Trout published what the high priests of Madison Avenue deemed as heresy. These two upstarts dared to take the voodoo out of marketing - and marketing has not been the same since.Over the years I have given away countless dozens of Positioning. I have found two types of recipients: (1) Those who view it as a book on marketing, and (2) those who truly "get it."Positioning is not actually about marketing, though that is its platform. It is about how the human mind works. The principals taught in this book apply across all of our lives - from how we are viewed by our friends to why we affiliate with a particular political party or other social cause. Learning how Positioning works is learning about life.

Packed With Knowledge!

Yes, this is the renowned marketing classic, revered for bringing to light the now ubiquitous strategy of positioning. If you're in business, you probably have at least a fuzzy notion of what the term means. If you're in marketing, you probably hear the word used at least five times a day. (Seriously, try counting.) But in terms of defining positioning and explaining how to use it as a foundation for your strategy, nobody has done a better job than Al Ries and Jack Trout in this original. Of course, the book does have a slightly historical flavor to it now, since the most contemporary business examples cited arrive from the 1970s and 1980s. While a lot has changed since then, a lot hasn't. You'll be surprised how similar this book sounds to the marketing missives of 2001, despite the fact that it was written before the arrival of the Internet, globalization and other buzzwords du jour. We [...] recommend that any executive charged with product development or general business strategy join those in marketing, advertising and sales by taking a few hours to read this book, and get back to the basics.

The most important marketing book you can read

I discovered this book in 1994 and it changed my business life. It opened my eyes to a facet of marketing that is too often overlooked, and it's the most important facet. Positioning is more than branding, it's the key to success. Luckily, most companies don't do proper positioning, which is why there's always room for new companies to start up, get it right, and be very successful.If you don't read this book, you're chances at success are like everyone elses: 1 in 10. Read and learn positioning, and the odds are with you. Simple as that.