Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, written by Al Ries and Jack Trout, was first published in 1980 by McGraw-Hill publications and was later republished in 2000 as the 20th anniversary edition. The book defines the term "positioning" as it applies to marketing and expounds on strategies to utilize positioning to be successful in the marketplace. **Introduction and Scope:** The authors define positioning as: " How you differentiate your product in the mind of your prospect". In a world where everyone is bombarded with a barrage of information, it is very difficult to stand out and make an impact on someone. The authors recognize this and suggest that the most effective communication is short and simple. The volume of a message will determine the ability of the message to go through a prospect. These form the basic concepts upon which the notion of 'positioning' is built. The authors then go on the describe how positioning can be applied to various situations such as marketing a company, a product or even a person. **About the Authors:** Ries graduated from DePauw University in 1950 with a degree in liberal arts and accepted a position with the advertising department of General Electric before founding his own advertising agency in New York City. He is also the co-founder and chairman of the Atlanta based consulting firm Ries & Ries. Jack Trout is the president of Trout & Partners, a consulting firm and is one of the pioneers in the field of positioning and marketing welfare theory. **Synopsis:** _"The easy way to get into a person's mind is to be first."_ In the world of over-communication, our mind rejects information it does not want to process. An average person's vocabulary is only a about 8000 words. But there are several tens of thousands of brands in existence. Hence, we only tend to remember a few brands in each category. The brand a person remembers the most is the brand the person gets exposed to first in the particular category or the brand that is best selling in that particular category. Hence the leaders in a particular category have a great advantage because of the momentum they have. The leaders in a category get the most benefit out of advertising the entire category of the product rather than the product itself. The market leaders also need to cover moves by their competition by investing in new avenues that the competition might use to differentiate themselves. The authors also talk about how the second or lower place brands can position themselves against a leader in a particular category. A classic example of Avis who used to market as "We're No. 2. We try harder" is given. In this case Avis has positioned itself against the market leader Hertz by acknowledging their market position and putting a positive spin on it. No company exists in a vacuum and the advertising and marketing strategy needs to reflect that. The authors urge the companies who are not the market leaders to "Cherchez le creneau" ie. look for a hole in the leader's product. In order to take on a old idea, you need first move it out of the minds of the customers and introduce a new idea. The authors also describe that the name of the brand is very important to the long -term success of a product or company. You should be able to block out me-too competitors from taking your territory. A strong generic-like and descriptive name will help avoid this situation. The authors also talk about various traps that the companies fall into when they introduce a new product using the same brand name of an existing product. This doesnt help position the new product in the minds of the customers and my dilute the perception of the existing brand. Positioning can also be used to promote a person and not just a product or company. The authors have developed a strategy called “Six Steps to Success” that consists of questions that will help get your mental process started. Ries and Trout believe that in order to be successful in positioning you need to have the right mental attitude and become an outside-in thinker instead of an inside-out thinker. This requires patience, courage and strength of character. Further, you have to use words in a right way in order to trigger the meanings which are buried in the mind. The author uses various sources to reinforce their point of view. Several of the examples were from large consumer based companies and products in the late twentieth century. The various companies that are used as examples include P&G, Coke, Pepsi, Xerox, Avis, General Motors, Monsanto, etc. **Critique:** Overall, this is an excellent book on marketing that I would recommend to anyone. Even though the book was originally written 30 years ago, many of the concepts still hold true. (maybe even more so today because of the information overload due to the internet). The authors did a great job of providing examples for the various concepts they wanted to convey. However, because of the age of the book, many of these examples may not be very relevant to the reader today. If the authors were to rewrite the book with new examples from modern day companies, I am sure they would find ample sources.