In today’s ultra-competitive world, the average supermarket has forty thousand brand items on its shelves. Car shoppers can wander through the showrooms of over twenty auto makers. Differentiating products today is more challenging than at any time in history, yet it remains a key to a company’s survival, the heart of successful marketing.

In Differentiate or Die, bestselling author Jack Trout takes marketers to task for taking the easy route of high-tech razzle-dazzle and sleight of hand instead of working to discover and market their product’s uniquely valuable qualities. He examines successful differentiation initiatives from giants like Dell Computer, Southwest Airlines, and Walmart to smaller success stories like Streit’s Matzoh and Connecticut’s tiny Trinity College to determine why some marketers succeed while others struggle and fail. The author outlines the many ways to achieve differentiation, while also warning of how difficult it is to achieve differentiation by being creative, cheap, customer oriented, or quality driven—things that your competitor can do as well.

Carve out your own image in a crowded marketplace. This book can help.