Sublime

Positioning by Jack Trout and Al Ries is one of the most important marketing books ever.

When things are going well, a company doesn’t need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you’re in trouble.

An advertiser who wants to introduce a new product category must carry in a new ladder. This, too, is difficult, especially if the new category is not positioned against the old one. The mind has no room for what’s new and different unless it’s related to the old. That’s why if you have a truly new product, it’s often better to tell the prospect wh

Forget the front page. If you’re looking for clues to the future, look in the back of the paper for those innocuous little stories.

If you’re not a leader, then your word has to have a narrow focus. Even more important, however, your word has to be “available” in your category. No one else can have a lock on it. You don’t have to be a linguistic genius to find a winner. Prego went against leader Ragu in the spaghetti sauce market and captured a 27 percent share with an idea bor

If you want to establish a firm foothold on the second rung of the ladder, study the firm above you. Where is it strong? And how do you turn that strength into a weakness? You must discover the essence of the leader and then present the prospect with the opposite. (In other words, don’t try to be better, try to be different.) It’s often the upstart

As Wal-Mart’s chief executive said in a Business Week article, “If you learn something and you’re trying something, then you probably get credit for it. But woe to the person who makes the same mistake twice.”

Never assume that people know which brand is the leader. This is especially true in fast-growing, new categories like contact software and maintenance software. Most new prospects have no experience with the category and little knowledge of available brands, so they naturally gravitate to the leading brand.