Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis - Hardcover

Trout, Jack; Rivkin, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071635599 ISBN 13: 9780071635592

Verlag: McGraw-Hill Education Ltd, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

The book that completes Positioning . . .

Thirty years ago, Jack Trout and Al Ries publishedtheir classic bestseller, Positioning: The Battle for YourMind—a book that revolutionized the world of marketing.But times have changed. Competition is fiercer.Consumers are savvier. Communications are faster. Andonce-successful companies are in crisis mode.

Repositioning shows you how to adapt, compete—andsucceed—in today’s overcrowded marketplace. Globalmarketing expert Jack Trout has retooled his mosteffective positioning strategies—providing a must-havearsenal of proven marketing techniques specificallyredesigned for our current climate. With Repositioning,you can conquer the “3 Cs” of business: Competition,Change, and Crisis . . .

1. BEAT THE COMPETITION: Challenge your rivals,differentiate your product, increase your value,and stand out in the crowd.
2. CHANGE WITH THE TIMES: Use the latesttechnologies, communications, and multimediaresources to connect with your consumers.
3. MANAGE A CRISIS: Cope with everything fromprofi t losses and rising costs to bad pressand PR nightmares.

Even if your company is doing well, these cutting-edgemarketing observations can keep you on top of your gameand ahead of the pack. You’ll discover how expandingproduct lines may decrease your overall sales, why newbrand names often outsell established brands, and whyslashing prices is usually a bad idea. You’ll learn thedangers of attacking your competitors head-on—andthe value of emphasizing value. You’ll see how consumerscan have too many choices to pick from—and whatyou can do to make them pick your brand.

Drawing from the latest research studies, consumer statistics,and business-news headlines, Trout reveals thehidden psychological motives that drive today’s market.Understanding the mindset of your consumers is halfthe battle. Winning in today’s world is often a matter ofrepositioning. It’s how you rethink the strategies you’vealways relied on. It’s how you regain the success you’veworked so hard for. It’s how you win the new battle ofthe mind.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, a worldwide marketing firm with headquarters in Connecticut and offices in 13 countries. With Al Ries, he coauthored the marketing classic Positioning and the bestsellersMarketing Warfare and The 22 Immutable Laws ofMarketing. Trout’s books have been translated into16 languages, including the BusinessWeek bestsellerThe New Positioning. You can visit his Web site atwww.troutandpartners.com.
Steve Rivkin is a naming expert with Trout & Partnersand coauthor of three books with Jack Trout. He is founderof Rivkin & Associates LLC, a marketing and communicationsconsultancy in Glen Rock, N.J. Visit Steve atwww.rivkin.net.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

The marketplace is changing. Are you?

So you’ve mastered the art of marketing. You’ve positioned your company, branded yourproduct, and targeted your consumer. Unfortunately, in today’s economy, that’s not enough.You need REPOSITIONING.

A brilliant new approach to consumer psychology and corporate identity, this groundbreaking—and game-changing—guide shows you how to . . .

RETHINK your current marketing
REFOCUS your consumer branding
REASSESS your company’s strengths
REPOSITION your corporate identity
RECLAIM your competitive edge

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

REPOSITIONING MARKETING IN AN ERA OF COMPETITION, CHANGE, AND CRISIS

By Jack Trout Steve Rivkin

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Jack Trout
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-163559-2

Contents

Chapter One

THE FOUNDATION

It's important that we review the essence of positioning, as it is also the foundation of repositioning. We have to reprise some of the prior writings on this subject. If by chance you remember verbatim what's been written, hang in there.

Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of your prospect. It's also a body of work on how the mind works in the process of communication.

Repositioning is how you adjust perceptions, whether those perceptions are about you or about your competition. (More on this in subsequent chapters.) In both cases, in order for your strategy to work, you must understand how the mind works or how people think.

So, for those of you who have missed our many books, speeches, and articles on the subject, here's a synopsis of how the mind works and the key principles of positioning.

By understanding how the mind works, you'll be prepared to better implement positioning and its twin, repositioning.

Minds Can't Cope

While the mind may still be a mystery, we know one thing about it for certain: it's under attack.

Most Western societies have become totally "overcommunicated." The explosion in media forms and the ensuing increase in the volume of communications have dramatically affected the way people either take in or ignore the information that is offered to them.

Overcommunication has changed the whole game of communicating with and influencing people. What was overload in the 1970s has turned into megaload in the new century.

Here are some statistics to dramatize the problem:

• More information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000.

• The total of all printed knowledge doubles every four or five years.

• One weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person in seventeenth-century England was likely to come across in a lifetime.

• More than 4,000 books are published around the world every day.

• The average white-collar worker uses 70 kilograms (154 pounds) of copy paper a year—twice the amount consumed 10 years ago.

Electronic Bombardment

And what about the electronic side of our overcommunicated society?

Every day, the World Wide Web grows by a million electronic pages, according to Scientific American, adding to the many hundreds of millions of pages already online.

Everywhere you travel in the world, satellites are beaming endless messages to every corner of the globe. By the time a child in the United Kingdom is 18, he has been exposed to 140,000 TV commercials. In Sweden, the average consumer receives 3,000 commercial messages a day.

In terms of advertising messages, 11 countries in Europe now broadcast well over 6 million TV commercials a year. Television has exploded from a dozen channels to a thousand channels. All this means that your differentiating idea must be as simple and as visible as possible and must be delivered over and over again on all media. The politicians try to stay "on message." Marketers must stay "on differentiation."

Minds Hate Confusion

Human beings rely more heavily on learning than any other species that has ever existed.

Learning is the way in which animals and humans acquire new information. Memory is the way in which they retain that information over time. Memory is not just your ability to remember a phone number. Rather, it's a dynamic system that's used in every other facet of thought processing. We use memory to see. We use it to understand language. We use it to find our way around.

So, if memory is so important, what's the secret of being remembered?

When asked what single event was most helpful to him in developing the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein is reported to have answered: "Figuring out how to think about the problem."

Half the battle is getting to the essence of the problem. Generally speaking, this means having a deep understanding of your competitors and their place in the mind of your prospect.

It's not about what you want. It's about what your competitors will let you do.

The Power of Simplicity

The basic concept of some products predicts their failure—not because they don't work but because they don't make sense. Consider Mennen's vitamin E deodorant. That's right, you sprayed a vitamin under your arms. That doesn't make sense unless you want the healthiest, best-fed armpits in the nation. It quickly failed.

Consider the Apple Newton. It was a fax, beeper, calendar keeper, and pen-based computer. Too complex. It's gone, and the much simpler iPhone is an enormous success.

The best way to really enter minds that hate complexity and confusion is to oversimplify your message. Some of the most powerful programs are those that focus on a single word (Volvo: safety; BMW: driving). The lesson here is not to try to tell your entire story. Just focus on one powerful differentiating idea and drive it into your prospect's mind.

That sudden hunch, that creative leap of the mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence. If there's any trick to finding that simple set of words, it's being ruthless about how you edit the story you want to tell.

Anything that others could claim just as well as you can, eliminate. Anything that requires a complex analysis to prove, forget. Anything that doesn't fit with your customers' perceptions, avoid.

Minds Are Insecure

Pure logic is no guarantee of a winning argument. Minds tend to be both emotional and rational. Why do people buy what they buy? Why do people act the way they do in the marketplace?

When you ask people why they made a particular purchase, the responses they give are often not very accurate or very useful.

That may mean that they really do know, but they are reluctant to tell you the real reason. More often, however, they really don't know precisely what their own motives are.

For when it comes to recall, minds tend to remember things that no longer exist. That's why recognition of a well-established brand often stays high over a long period, even if advertising support for that brand is dropped.

In the mid-1980s, an awareness study was conducted on blenders. Consumers were asked to recall all the brand names they could. General Electric came out number two—even though GE hadn't made a blender for 20 years.

Buying What Others Buy

More often than not, people buy what they think they should have. They're sort of like sheep, following the flock.

Do most people really need a four-wheel-drive vehicle? (No.) If they do, why didn't these become popular years ago? (They weren't fashionable.)

The main reason for this kind of behavior is insecurity, a subject about which many scientists have written extensively. If you've been around a long time, people trust you more and feel secure in their purchase of your product. This is why heritage is a good differentiator.

Minds are insecure for many reasons. One reason is perceived risk in doing something as basic as making a purchase. Behavioral scientists say that there are five forms of perceived risk.

1. Monetary risk.

(There's a chance that I could lose money on this.)...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw-Hill Education Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0071635599
• ISBN 13: 9780071635592
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 217
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar