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

Buying this book is a no-brainer. If you are an entrepreneur (without a marketing background), as I am, this book will completely change how you position your company, craft your sales message, develop website content, and explain what you do. If you are developing a new product or service it is often hard to communicate the value of your offering: you get so caught up in features that you have a hard time explaining the benefits. Customers could care less about features, the want to know "what will it do for me?" This book sets you down the right path. Simply put, it is THE most important business book I have ever read. If I could only choose one more business book to read for the rest of my life, I would read this one again.

The cover of my old 1970s book has a picture of a chess board, and this symbol codifies the essence of the positioning concept: How do you differentiate your product from competing products in a way that is attractive to a customer? Positioning was a break from Rossier Reeve's 1950s Unique Selling Proposition, which focuses on benefits of the product itself, and David Ogilvy's 1960s Image Advertising concept, which focuses on allusive images. Years later the concept of Value Propositions gained steam; it measures value as the difference between cost and benefits. Nowadays the more emotional concept of branding is popular, along with the idea of interactive connections with consumers (e.g., think about the value of Amazon book reviews as a differentiator). And for new to-this-world offerings, I've often found it's best to plainly describe what it does. Additionally, many focus on the "Elevator Statement," which is really just a forced simplicity of your positioning statement. The problem with Positioning is that singular product differences are often too small to matter; suspicion about claims is high; the ability of advertising to achieve effective reach and frequency is enormously expensive nowadays; and many products are bought on emotion. Still, positioning can work well if you are first, the unqualified best, the biggest, or the only one in a market. The concept is also useful as a way of thinking about a product and market. The book is written in the manner of advertising, so it's a quick and easy read. There is also a good list of questions to help you focus your position: 1. What position do you own? 2. What position do you want to own? 3. Whom must you outgun? 4: Do you have enough money? 5. Can you stick it out? 6. Do you match your position? The positioning concept is a good contribution to marketing, as are the others mentioned above. It is, however, a bit outdated, and overly muscular. And Al Ries leans on war as a metaphor for marketing. But you could just as easily state that the best marketing is about love. Here are a few related contemporary marketing books to investigate. The ones most specifically aligned with Positioning include Jumpstart Your Business Brain and Relationship Marketing. Primalbranding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies For The Age Of The Customer Radical Marketing: From Harvard to Harley, Lessons from Ten That Broke the Rules and Made It Big Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately Double Your Business Success Rate

Positioning is part of the evolution in concepts used by Advertising and Marketing. Some authors and practitioners like Claude Hopkins, Rosser Reeves, David Ogilvy have made fundamental contributions to the development of Advertising. I have an impression that Positioning is also the latest great contribution in the history of Advertising. After this book, marketing authors have rediscovered old concepts with other words again and again... (If someone identifies a new fundamental concept introduced later please post your comment on this review!). This book is a must read, for the ideas in it and the pleasure to read it. The importance of "Positioning" had a great example just recently in American Business history. Steve Jobs was a master of positioning, he did it to Apple and Pixar in a spectacular way. Each new product he unveiled to the public he would position it in a very particular way creating a marketing impact second to none. What is most strange is that, the Authors of Positioning kept repeating themselves in several books, committing the same sin that they criticized on others, line extension!

excellent reading, and hooked to its points that can apply to all other life points, not only marketing or positioning. Positioning is important to life, professional and other applications.

When people think of you (or your brand), what single-word would they use to describe you? That's the premise of Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. It's a powerful concept. For example, Volvo = "Safe." BMW = "Performance." Mercedes = "Luxury." Each of these companies co-exist because they occupy a different part of a person's mind. This book changed my thinking about marketing, investing, entrepreneurship and how I wanted my colleagues to perceive me. Highly recommended.

Loving the material in the book. It is a little tricky in spots to follow because the updated parts are actually in the margins and not inline in the text. The original text itself is a little dated in spots, but that is where the margin notes come in handy. Definitely a good read for small business owners or anyone doing marketing.

I read the first edition some years ago while working as a product manager (must read), and read this edition recently to refresh my thoughts (trying to force one I’m mentoring to get away from algorithms and put on the strategy hat). Can there be a newer version with updated examples?

I think this book falls short of expectations. The contents covered by the author in the whole book could have been successfully covered in 5 pages. Any one with a little bit of marketing background will find it hard to learn anything new. Positioning is a big success factor in any marketing campaign, and this book doesn't cover the "how to" part adequately. Nevertheless, it's a very easy read and will take you about an hour to finish the book.

Enjoy the book.

It's amazing to notice how many companies don't know and/or understand the simple principles described in this book. This is describing exactly how positioning works.

This book is great for anyone remotely interested in Marketing and Business. Even though it's over 20 years old, the concepts continue to be incredibly relevant. This is a very pragmatic book with real exemples which makes it easy to understand what is being explained. Very easy to recommend. 5 stars

Aunque los ejemplos son muy antiguos ayuda mucho a poner en contexto a aquellos que se inician en el tema. Además de que brinda buenos ejemplos

Solo he conseguido leer la mitad del libro y he decidido dejarlo. Por una parte, la edición para el formato Kindle es pésima. Error de ortografía y alguna párrafos cortados por la mitad (página 57, por ejemplo), empezando de golpe un nuevo párrafo y siguiendo con el párrafo cortado un poco después. Además, el texto nuevo añadido en la última versión no es fácil de identificar y hace que todo sea más confuso todavía. No se debería vender un libro editado así. En cuanto al contenido, tiene puntos interesantes, pero me pareció muy repetitivo. Me gustó mucho más el otro libro del mismo autor: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.