Jack Trout in a column in forbes.com reminds us of a powerful strategy that has been abandoned by many companies. He and former partner Al Ries wrote about it in a book called, Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind.
The premise behind the whole strategy is to realize that for you to position your product in the mind of a consumer, you need to first move the old idea out.
He adds that one of the reasons that this works so good is that people have the inclination to like to watch the "bubble burst" in these areas.
He reminds us of the way Tylenol went about doing this in positioning itself against Aspirin for Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).
"For the millions who should not take aspirin," said Tylenol's ads. "If your stomach is easily upset…or you have an ulcer…or your suffer from asthma, allergies, or iron-deficiency anemia, it would make good sense to check with your doctor before you take aspirin.
"Aspirin can irritate the stomach lining," continued the Tylenol ad, "trigger asthmatic or allergic reactions, cause small amounts of hidden gastrointestinal bleeding.
"Fortunately, there is Tylenol…."
Trout shows that there are sixty words here that are mentioned before they even introduce their own product. The result was that sales of the cetaminophen-based Tylenol skyrocketed.
This shows that you can compete with entrenched products and services if you postion your product or service correctly.
Tremendous isn't it?
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