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The Strategic Enemy: How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For
"The next breakthrough in Positioning thinking. Laura Ries simplifies, amplifies, and challenges us to get serious about what we stand for."
—Seth Godin, Author, This is Marketing
Build a brand worth fighting for using the power of positioning and focus
Consumers are overwhelmed by choices and inundated with marketing messages. And despite an obsession with positioning amongst the world’s most well-known companies, too many brands retain an outdated focus on “being better” and using “line-extensions” rather than on what really matters in the mind—being different than your strategic enemy.
In The Strategic How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For, bestselling author and brand strategist Laura Ries delivers an exciting and powerful new discussion of how some of the world’s most energetic brands make an impact in the market. She explains the key to effective brand positioning—identifying an “enemy”—and shows you how to use an indisputable difference to drive your brand into the minds of consumers. To get people to fight for something, it will require them to reject something else. Ries draws on her extensive experience in marketing and branding to show you how to develop a “visual ” a crystal-clear image that distinguishes your brand from everyone else’s. You’ll also
Illustrative case studies of real-world companies—like Liquid Death, the popular canned water brand, Chick-fila-A's “Eat More Chikin” campaign, Oatly’s “Wow no Cow,” slogan, and Nvidia, the leader in AI computing—that demonstrate how to effectively position using focus and a distinctive enemy (plastic bottles, beef, and dairy milk, respectively) Strategies to adapt to a constantly changing marketplace where trends, products, and customer needs shift every day How to keep your company from expanding or extending to such an extent that true differentiation is impossible
Perfect for branding and strategy teams, managers, executives, and other business leaders, The Strategic Enemy is also a must-read for marketing professionals, sales leaders, and anyone else with an interest in driving revenue at their company.
—Seth Godin, Author, This is Marketing
Build a brand worth fighting for using the power of positioning and focus
Consumers are overwhelmed by choices and inundated with marketing messages. And despite an obsession with positioning amongst the world’s most well-known companies, too many brands retain an outdated focus on “being better” and using “line-extensions” rather than on what really matters in the mind—being different than your strategic enemy.
In The Strategic How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For, bestselling author and brand strategist Laura Ries delivers an exciting and powerful new discussion of how some of the world’s most energetic brands make an impact in the market. She explains the key to effective brand positioning—identifying an “enemy”—and shows you how to use an indisputable difference to drive your brand into the minds of consumers. To get people to fight for something, it will require them to reject something else. Ries draws on her extensive experience in marketing and branding to show you how to develop a “visual ” a crystal-clear image that distinguishes your brand from everyone else’s. You’ll also
Illustrative case studies of real-world companies—like Liquid Death, the popular canned water brand, Chick-fila-A's “Eat More Chikin” campaign, Oatly’s “Wow no Cow,” slogan, and Nvidia, the leader in AI computing—that demonstrate how to effectively position using focus and a distinctive enemy (plastic bottles, beef, and dairy milk, respectively) Strategies to adapt to a constantly changing marketplace where trends, products, and customer needs shift every day How to keep your company from expanding or extending to such an extent that true differentiation is impossible
Perfect for branding and strategy teams, managers, executives, and other business leaders, The Strategic Enemy is also a must-read for marketing professionals, sales leaders, and anyone else with an interest in driving revenue at their company.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published September 16, 2025
6 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Laura Ries
18 books19 followersLaura Ries is a marketing strategist, author, and president of Ries & Ries, the consultancy firm she co-founded with her father, Al Ries. She is known for her work in branding and has appeared frequently as a media commentator.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 18, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Если сегодняшний читатель никогда не читал или даже ничего не слышал о таких знаменитых маркетологах XX века как Эл Райс (Al Ries) и Джек Траут (Jack Trout), то в таком случаи эта книга сможет стать чем-то вроде откровения для мира маркетинга. Проблема этой книги в том, что автор просто пересказывает всё то, что содержится в таких книгах как «Marketing Warfare», «Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind», «The Origin of Brands», « The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR», « Differentiate or Die», « Visual Hammer». И это при том, что вышеописанные книги сами повторяют друг друга по множество раз. Так что если читатель уже знаком с классиками современного маркетинга, он или она вряд ли найдут что-то новое в этой книге. Точнее, они ничего нового не найдут, т.к. эта «новая» книга дочери Эла Райса просто пересказывает то, о чём писал её отец. Наверно книга ориентирована главным образом на молодую аудиторию кому сейчас 18-20 лет, и которые вполне возможно чисто физически не смогли найти копии старых книг, книг которые я обозначил выше.
И всё же лично я рекомендую ознакомиться с оригинальными работами, а не с этой «новой» книгой.
If today's reader has never read or even heard of such famous 20th-century marketers as Al Ries and Jack Trout, then this book could be something of a revelation for the world of marketing. The problem with this book is that the author simply retells everything contained in books such as Marketing Warfare, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, The Origin of Brands, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, Differentiate or Die, and Visual Hammer. And this is despite the fact that the above-mentioned books themselves repeat each other many times over. So if the reader is already familiar with the classics of modern marketing, he or she is unlikely to find anything new in this book. More precisely, they will find nothing new, because this “new” book by Al Ries' daughter simply retells what her father wrote about. The book is probably aimed primarily at a young audience who are now 18-20 years old and who may not have been able to find copies of the old books I mentioned above.
Still, personally, I recommend reading the original works rather than this “new” book.
Если сегодняшний читатель никогда не читал или даже ничего не слышал о таких знаменитых маркетологах XX века как Эл Райс (Al Ries) и Джек Траут (Jack Trout), то в таком случаи эта книга сможет стать чем-то вроде откровения для мира маркетинга. Проблема этой книги в том, что автор просто пересказывает всё то, что содержится в таких книгах как «Marketing Warfare», «Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind», «The Origin of Brands», « The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR», « Differentiate or Die», « Visual Hammer». И это при том, что вышеописанные книги сами повторяют друг друга по множество раз. Так что если читатель уже знаком с классиками современного маркетинга, он или она вряд ли найдут что-то новое в этой книге. Точнее, они ничего нового не найдут, т.к. эта «новая» книга дочери Эла Райса просто пересказывает то, о чём писал её отец. Наверно книга ориентирована главным образом на молодую аудиторию кому сейчас 18-20 лет, и которые вполне возможно чисто физически не смогли найти копии старых книг, книг которые я обозначил выше.
И всё же лично я рекомендую ознакомиться с оригинальными работами, а не с этой «новой» книгой.
If today's reader has never read or even heard of such famous 20th-century marketers as Al Ries and Jack Trout, then this book could be something of a revelation for the world of marketing. The problem with this book is that the author simply retells everything contained in books such as Marketing Warfare, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, The Origin of Brands, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, Differentiate or Die, and Visual Hammer. And this is despite the fact that the above-mentioned books themselves repeat each other many times over. So if the reader is already familiar with the classics of modern marketing, he or she is unlikely to find anything new in this book. More precisely, they will find nothing new, because this “new” book by Al Ries' daughter simply retells what her father wrote about. The book is probably aimed primarily at a young audience who are now 18-20 years old and who may not have been able to find copies of the old books I mentioned above.
Still, personally, I recommend reading the original works rather than this “new” book.
September 14, 2025
I have selected this book as Stevo's Business Book of the Week for the week of 9/14, as it stands heads above other recently published books on this topic.
January 2, 2026
Required reading...
This is a must read for any company looking to grow and dominate a market or market segment.
You will be glad you read this book.
This is a must read for any company looking to grow and dominate a market or market segment.
You will be glad you read this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews