Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Ries and Trout published this argument in 1981 and it has been in print since. The claim is that a position exists in the mind of the buyer and never in the product, so the work is finding a position that is open rather than describing what was built. They cover how a leader defends a position, how a follower finds the gap beside it, and why a company that stretches a strong brand into a new category usually weakens both. The examples come from advertising in the 1970s and have dated badly, and the argument underneath them is the one every modern positioning book restates.