In Search of the Obvious

In Search of the Obvious by Jack Trout is an eye opening read for anyone in the marketing field. It clarifies the cloudy thinking that many people fall prey to when it comes to marketing goods & services.

I've listed my favorite quotes to share with you.

• The search for any marketing strategy is the search for the obvious.
• When presented with a simple obvious strategy, most clients are not impressed. They are often looking for some clever, not so obvious idea.
• Common sense is your guide
• Research can obscure the obvious. A flood of data should never be allowed to wash away your common sense and your own feeling for the market
• Success or failure is all about perceptual problems and opportunities in the market. And it's all about understanding that the perceptions in the mind of the customer are where you win or lose.
• Customer awareness of a brand does not link to real customer behavior.
• Research may promise to reveal attitudes, but attitudes aren't a reliable prediction of behavior. People often talk one way but act another.
• How many people really want to chatter about products? Do you really want to talk about your toothpaste or toilet paper? Even people with prestige products tend not to talk about them. All they really want is to be seen driving in one.
• How do you get people to say the right thing or talk about your obvious idea? There's no way to control word of mouth.
• All these new ways to reach customers are just new tools. You still have to search for the obvious right product, the right strategy and the right differentiating idea in relation to your competition.
• Reaching customers is one thing. Selling them is another.
• All advertising and marketing have to do is supply the obvious reason to buy your product instead of your competitor's product.
• If you build a differentiated product, the world will not automatically beat a path to your door...news of your product has to have some help along the way.
• Every aspect of your communications should reflect your difference- your advertising, your brochures, your web site, your sales presentations.
• The basic role of an agency is to take that difference [differentiating factor] and make it interesting.
• Branding is all about what makes you different and what the benefit is in that difference.
• On GM versus Toyota: A successful brand has to stand for something. The more variations you attach to it, the more you risk of standing for nothing.
  

We tend to get quite distracted by fancy terms, new technology and prestigious facades that it becomes very easy to lose sight of the obvious objectives in marketing.

I do have a lot to say on this, but I will write about it all in subsequent posts. For now, I am just happy that someone is helping to clarify fundamental basic truths that marketing professionals and business managers should keep in mind at all times.

If you have this strong, burning impulse to get this book, here is the link