Filled with illustrated examples of where the authors were right and where they were wrong.


What the publisher had to say about the 20th anniversary edition. 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 advertising in the New Economy. To commemorate the 20th anniversary edition 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.

What the publisher had to say about Al Ries and Jack Trout. Some of the biggest breakthroughs of the past century were made by dynamic duos whose names will forever be remembered as synonymous with their monumental achievements. There were Marie & Pierre Curie who helped define the structure of atoms, James Watson & Francis Crick, the brains behind the discovery of the DNA double helix, Richard Rogers & Oscar Hammerstein II who revolutionized musical theater on Broadway, and, of course, there are Al Ries & Jack Trout the fathers of positioning, the revolutionary concept that forever changed the way marketing is done.

What the book contains. The 20th anniversary edition contains the entire text of the original edition plus 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 positioning approach. The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical 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.