Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition, Edition 2

After having read ‘Positioning’ by Al Ries and Trout, I was intrigued to read ‘Differentiate or Die’ by Jack Trout especially because of its title. The key message Trout is trying convey is that all enterprises have their unique selling propositions (USP); all they need to do is package, position and communicate it to their target audience. He has analyzed many successful differentiation initiatives from giants like Dell, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart to smaller success stories like eToys Inc., and Connecticut's Trinity College to determine why some marketers succeed at differentiating themselves while others struggle and fail. Trout has also stated some logical steps for developing the differentiating idea based on the existing credentials of an enterprise and the ways of communicating this to your stakeholders. He has done an in-depth exploration of how some of the attributes which can be packaged as a differentiating idea for your enterprise. Towards the end of this book, Trout has talked about differentiating anything, from changing a country’s image to unmarketing of drugs and differentiating the Democrats from Republicans, which really makes me think if any one of us have ever defined our own USP’s/differentiating factors which can help us develop our own strengths and niche in the industry? May be we should. Coming back to the insights from this book, the last chapter asks the most crucial question ‘Who is in charge of Differentiation?’, according to Trout most of the CEO’s treat marketing and innovation as their secondary objective whereas the sales is obviously the priority. Trout takes us through various examples of CEO failures showing more lousy strategy than lousy execution, this is mainly due to not knowing ‘what to do and what not to’, which is essentially caused due to the top level executives not getting involved in strategic initiatives and perhaps are more involved in showcasing the numbers on the bourse. The lesson to be learnt, top level management not only needs to be aware about the organization’s USP and the key differentiating factors but also communicate and share these with the employees, customers, investors and most importantly with the marketing consultancy. CEOs need to understand that marketing and innovation help produce results whereas all the rest are costs. For all those in marketing, branding, public relations this book can help you carve out various differentiation strategies and develop the appropriate positioning and identity for your clients in a crowded marketplace.

not bad, felt like he made a lot of repeat points. I understand it was to go into detail about each little piece of difference but frankly I understood themessage 15 chapters in.