Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace

The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what's already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.

Marriage, as a human institution, depends on the concept of first being better than best. And so does business.

The mind, as a defense against the volume of today’s communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.

Mind-changing is the road to advertising disaster.

companies are focused on building products rather than brands. A product is something made in a factory. A brand is something made in the mind. To be successful today, you have to build brands, not products. And you build brands by using positioning strategies, starting with a good name. Any

Don't play semantic games with the prospect. Advertising is not a debate. It's a seduction.

the professionals who are opposed to advertising say it downgrades their profession. And it does. To advertise effectively today, you have to get off your pedestal and put your ear to the ground. You have to get on the same wavelength as the prospect. In advertising, dignity as well as pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.

The Avis campaign will go down in marketing history as a classic example of establishing the “against” position.

Don’t try to trick the prospect. Advertising is not a debate. It’s a seduction. The

If you were forced to drink a beaker of di-hydrogen oxide, your response would probably be negative. If you asked for a glass of water, you might enjoy it. That's right. There's no difference on the palate. The difference, in the brain.

What’s called luck is usually an outgrowth of successful communication.

The essence of positioning is sacrifice. You must be willing to give up something in order to establish that unique position. Nyquil,

In politics,” said John Lindsay, “the perception is the reality.” So, too, in advertising, in business, and in life.

In our overcommunicated society, the paradox is that nothing is more important than communication.

You build brand loyalty in a supermarket the same way you build mate loyalty in a marriage. You get there first and then be careful not give them a reason to switch.