A BRIEF

SUMMARY

Anubhav MishraFellow @ IIM Lucknow, (Marketing)

February, 2014

Background

It’s the Bible on Advertising Strategy – the most influential

advertising book ever written.

This presentation is an attempt to summarize the key points

and learnings, and moreover to generate curiosity and interest

in the minds of the reader to read the actual book.

This work can be considered as my respect to the excellent

authors “Al Ries” and “Jack Trout”.

Chapter 1 –What Positioning Is All About Manipulate the mind, retie the existing connections.

Over communicated society – oversimplified mind

Chapter 2 –The Assault on the Mind Media Explosion

Product Explosion

Advertising Explosion

Chapter 3 – Getting Into the Mind Get into Mind first!

Differentiate or Die

It’s better to be a big fish in a

small pond (and then increase the

size of the pond) than to be small

fish in a big pound

Chapter 4 – Those Little Ladders in Your Head You see what you expect to see!

FWMTS trap – Forget what made

them successful.

Against positioning at number 2.

The Uncola campaign

Chapter 5 –You Can’t Get There from Here Fight fire with water

Can do approach Vs know your

limitations

Chapter 6 – Positioning of a Leader Establish leadership

It’s always 1 vs 2 (Coke – Pepsi,

McD – Burger king)

Cover all bets

React rapidly

Cover with multi brands

Broader name – trap of

extensions!

Chapter 7 – Positioning of a Follower Avoid me too approach

Price based, size based, cost

based positioning

Niche – Creneaus

Search for the loose brick in

consumer mind not in factory

Chapter 8 – Repositioning the Competition Create your own Niche

Aspirin vs Tylenol

Once a loser, always a loser –

pringles chips

Listerine vs scope

Legal, ethical comparison? Coke

and Pepsi blind tastes

Chapter 9 – The Power of the Name Lite vs light

Time vs Newsweek

{my disagreement} due to

globalization the names can’t give

advantage – ever heard of Nirma

or Ghari? Ask Unilever what they

are in India!

Chapter 10 – The No-Name Trap Simple to pronounce (phonetic)

Eyes vs. the ear syndrome

Short / synonym / making sense?

SAP or sappi ? By the way SAP is

market leader in ERP since last 40

odd years!

{my disagreement with this logic,

refer my earlier slide} Tata,

Reliance,Birla et al.

Chapter 11 – The Free-Ride Trap Extensions

New improved – ABC Plus!

Divide and conquer

Colgate – toothbrush, toothpaste,

mouth washVs P&G

Chapter 12 – The Line-Extension Trap Inside out OR outside in thinking

Coca cola – is it a soft drink OR is

it a sweet, dark carbonated drink

OR is it just Coke?

Miller Lite, Coors cannibalization

of the core products

Diet cola war

Reverse line extensions

Chapter 13 – When Line Extension Can Work Short term vs long term

advantage

Brand history – GE , Kraft, IBM,

Coke

Chevrolet, Cadillac, Volkswagen,

Volvo

Chapter 14 – Case Studies Positioning A

Company –Monsanto

Country – Belgium

Product –Milk Duds

Service –Mailgram

Long island bank

Catholic church

Chapter 20 – Positioning Yourself and Your Career You are you?

What is the differentiation?

Avoid no name trap

Avoid line extension trap

Ride a horse – company, boss,

friend, idea, faith, yourself

Chapter 21 – Six Steps to Success What position do you own?

What position do you want to

own?

Whommust you outgun?

Do you have enough money?

Can you stick it out?

Do you match your position?

Chapter 22 – Playing the Positioning Game Understand words

Understand people

Change management

You need Vision, Courage,

Objectivity, Subtlety, Patience

Sincere thanks to the all who have created a lot of designer fonts and made them available

for free to use. I have used few of them in this presentation. Thanks!

I have used the images which are available on the public domain. In case of any copyright

issue, just let me know, so that I can remove them. The usage is purely non commercial.

Acknowledgement