Book Summary Preview : Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind

The Big Idea

The average American consumer is exposed to $376 worth of advertising per day over 365 days. With this enormous volume of communication, the only way to score big is to be selective and concentrate on narrow targets through Positioning. It’s about how you position a product in the mind of your prospect.

Introduction
The best approach in our supersaturated society is the oversimplified message. The medium may not be the message anymore, but the medium acts as a filter for our message. A person’s mind can only take so much information, it blocks out everything that is not important or relevant.

1 What positioning is all about

In communication, less is more. Sharpen your message to cut into the mind. Select the material that has the best chance of getting through. Focus on the prospect you are selling to, and not the product you are selling.

2 The assault on the mind

• America consumes 57% of the world’s advertising, more than any other nation on earth.
• Each year some 30,000 books are published in the United States.
• American newspapers print 10 million tons of newsprint every year.
• The average American family watches 7 hours of television everyday.
• An 8-ounce package of Total breakfast cereal contains 1268 words of copy on the box.
• 93% of consumers recognize Mr. Clean even if he hasn’t been on TV in 10 years
• 5,000 new products are introduced into the American market each year

Television, radio, newspapers, posters, billboards, magazines, subways, buses, trucks, and the Internet all carry advertising messages and assault the consumer everyday.

Can the average person digest all this information? Of course not, that’s why positioning is so important.

3 Getting into the mind

Positioning is an organized system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances.

The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to be First. For example, you may be quick to answer if asked who was the first man on the moon, but what if you were asked to name the second?

Kodak is known as the first in photography. Xerox was the first in copiers. Coke was the first in cola, General Electric -all first in their respective industries. With being first the receptivity is great. Two parties meet in a situation where both are open to the idea, and there is no existing competition. Achieving brand loyalty the easy way means getting there first, and being careful not to give people a reason to switch.
Advertising learns the lesson. . . . . . .

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