RIES is Positioning. But positioning isn’t just for me. It is for everyone to use. I am so glad you are here in our new substack dedicated to positioning. As a subscriber I invite you to join our tribe and be among friends that love positioning.
The positioning concept was created by my father Al Ries together with Jack Trout in the end of the 1960s. It became widely popular with a series of articles published in Advertising Age in 1972 titled “The Positioning Era Cometh”.
When they published the book Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind in 1981 the positioning concept exploded and went global.
Today the Positioning book is one of the bestselling Marketing books in history that has sold and still sells millions of copies around the world.
Why is positioning critical for branding? A brand is only a brand if it exists in the mind. And getting into the human mind is exceptionally difficult. That’s why the Mind is the Battlefield, and not the Marketplace.
Although the word positioning today is used in branding by almost everyone, very few get it right. They may have a positioning statement written down in a brand book or marketing plan that goes something like this: we sell a wide variety of great products, with excellent service at reasonable prices.
Positioning is however not a way to describe all the things you do! Too many people use it like an umbrella sentence trying cover everything. On the contrary, a positioning has to be a sharp as a nail. Sharp because it needs to get into the mind. (and that’s why you need that Visual Hammer to drive in that nail)
Positioning is essentially about occupying and filling an open hole or position in the mind with a distinct and differentiating word or idea that the prospect will remember and associate your brand with. Ideally that positioning idea involves claiming leadership in the category you have set up and pioneered.
Positioning requires focus, sacrifice and courage – the three things most companies hate the most.
Instead, companies develop their brand strategy only thinking about themselves. Their goal is communication and to achieve short term sales revenue. They make the mistake of forgetting about the mind and act as if their competitors don’t exist.
The goal with positioning is fundamentally different from communication: while communication starts with what you want to say, positioning strategy starts with what the mind of the customer is willing to accept and believe.
Important to remember in that context, is that the human mind understands ideas best through contrast. The mind has a hard time evaluating one idea in isolation and therefore understands opposition faster than superiority.
So, instead of making claims that your brand is better, it is much more effective to contrast with a strategic enemy how your brand is different.
Using a strategic enemy is positioning on steroids, it will pump you up to be sharper, more differentiated and ultimately more successful.
Have courage, be focused and pick your enemy to build a brand worth fighting for!
We spend so much time trying to outshine our competitors when we should be outpositioning them in the customer’s mind. Clever Laura.
Congrats on your first article !!!!
So great industry heavyweights like you are joining Substack. Positioning is, and will remain, the most analytically sound approach to brand strategy.
This made me laugh (because it’s so true): “They may have a positioning statement written down in a brand book or marketing plan that goes something like this: we sell a wide variety of great products, with excellent service at reasonable prices.”
Congratulations on your first article, Laura.