Instrumental in developing the vital approach to marketing known as “positioning,” he is responsible for some of the freshest ideas to be introduced into marketing thinking in the last several decades.
Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA and offices in 13 countries. Jack Trout manages and supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. The firm has done work for AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and other Fortune 500 companies.
Jack Trout started his business career in the advertising department of General Electric. From there he went on to become a divisional advertising manager at Uniroyal. Then he joined Al Ries in the advertising agency and marketing strategy firm where they worked together for over twenty-six years.
With Al Ries he co-authored the industry classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, which was published in 1980. In 1985 he and Al Ries wrote a second best-selling book entitled Marketing Warfare. Positioning and Marketing Warfare are now published in 14 languages. In 1988 Bottom-Up-Marketing was published. In 1993 their book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing became the marketing bible. It outlined the basic reasons why marketing programs succeed or fail in the competitive nineties. Jack Trout closed the circle with the sequel to Positioning in 1995. Entitled The New Positioning it takes the world’s No. 1 business strategy to a new level. It became a Business Week best seller and has already been translated into 16 languages. This was followed by The Power of Simplicity – A Management Guide To Cutting Through the Nonsense And Doing Things Right. Then it was Differentiate or Die – Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition which presented the keys to survival in a killer global economy. This has also become a best seller.
His latest books are entitled Big Brands Big Trouble and The Genie's Wisdom. They explain why the marketing process is so important for senior management to learn and practice.
Speech Topics
Positioning and The New Positioning
This lays out the rules of marketing in terms of dealing with the minds of your customers and prospects. The mind is the ultimate battleground in all marketing wars. Positioning deals with the importance of being first, starting new categories, repositioning the competition, the importance of the name and the need to sacrifice and focus your efforts. A sequel to this book was published in 1995. It's entitled The New Positioning and takes this body of work to a higher level.
Marketing Warfare
This presents the strategy of dealing with the competition in a highly competitive world. It lays out the strategic square and the four different types of warfare: Defensive, offensive, flanking and guerrilla.
Bottom-Up Marketing
This is the "process" presentation that develops the thesis that successful tactics should drive strategy.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
This book presents the most important principles found in all of our work. How many of the Laws I do is dependent on the time allotted.
