JACK TROUT [TROUT - IN SEARCH OF THE OBVIOUS

IN SEARCH OF

THE OBVIOUS

Jack Trout is President of Trout and Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms in the United States, with offices in twenty countries. His client list includes Southwest Airlines, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Sears and the US State Department. He is the author of several marketing classics, including Differentiate or Die and Repositioning . For more information, please visit www.troutandpartners.com.

IN SEARCH OF

THE OBVIOUS

The Antidote for Todays

Marketing Mess

JACK TROUT

westland ltd

61 Silverline Building, 2nd floor, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095

93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, New Delhi 110002

First published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey 2008

Published simultaneously in Canada

First published in India by westland ltd 2009

First e-book edition: 2015

This edition published in India by westland ltd 2015

Copyright Jack Trout 2008

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-93-85152-08-5

Typeset by Ram Das Lal

Due care and diligence has been taken while editing and printing the book. Neither the author, publisher nor the printer of thebook hold any responsibility for any mistake that may have crept in inadvertently. Westland Ltd, the Publisher and the printers will be free from any liability for damages and losses ofany nature arising from or related to the content. All disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of competent courts in Chennai.

To Richard Maggiore

The man who introduced me to Obvious Adams

CONTENTS

Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

(18631952)

Theres a lot of history in this book and people always ask me why I bring up old case histories to teach a lesson.

My response is that Mr. Santayanas advice is of great importance, as the past tells you what to do today. (Vietnam pretty much told us what would happen in Iraq.)

So it is in marketing. I tell young marketing people to study the past and to avoid thinking that the world is different. It isntbecause the human condition is the same.

In addition, this study has to focus on the long view as his-tory unfolds slowly.

Why? Well it takes awhile to discover the truth. You have to carefully keep track of the results. Theres a lot of ego in most business decisions so the truth is often hidden and few want to admit a mistake. As Mark Twain so artfully wrote, You cant get the truth out of people until they are dead and dead a long time.

Jack Trout

PREFACE

B usiness is in an era of killer competition. And at a time when the function of marketing is of critical importance, marketing is in a mess.

I didnt appreciate how bad things had become until I came across some research as I was updating my book Differentiate or Die . (It became Chapter 2.)

In great detail, this study illustrated that while categories are expanding thanks to the Immutable Law of Division, something sinister is happening. Despite all the attention paid to branding these days, more and more of these categories are sliding into commoditization. In other words, fewer and fewer of the brands in these categories are well differentiated. In peoples minds, they are there but thats about all. You could call them placeholders. They are sort of like squatters. They live there but dont own a meaningful idea that makes them unique.

Differentiation, of course, exists, and does so on the basis of a product or service actually owning valuesreal or perceived, rational or emotionaland occupying a real place in the consumers mindsbeyond the consumer just being aware of them. And the degree to which they possess these values and have meaning in the consumers lives determines whether they have differentiated themselves. But fewer and fewer products and services are able to demonstrate any degree of actual differentiation.

To prove this, BrandKeys, Inc., a New York based loyalty and engagement research consultancy, conducted an analysis of 1,847 products and services in 75 categories via their Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.1 Using a combination of psychological inquiry and factor regression, and causal path analyses, they were able to predict how positively or negatively consumers will act toward the products depending on their degree of differentiation.

On average, the study found that only 21 percent of all the products and services examined had any points of differentiation that were meaningful to the consumers. This is nearly 10 percent less than a benchmark study that was conducted in 2003. (Theres more on this in Chapter 3.)

What this means is that more and more products are being sold on pricenot benefitswhich is not a happy place to be.

Its no wonder that chief marketing officers (CMOs) have a shorter job tenure than NFL coaches. The latest reports have them barely getting beyond two years before they are gone. As BusinessWeek commented in an article on the subject, The job is radioactive.