Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, 2nd Edition

Zig When Everyone Else Zags

Bose is a great example of this strategy. They are a maker of high-quality moderately priced sound equipment. Their core audience fits precisely with the profile of the Times magazine reader—thoughtful, well-educated, and not scared off by an ad that goes into a bit of technical detail. Rather than advertise in magazines targeted to audio enthusiasts, which are jam-packed with sound equipment ads, Bose goes where all their competitors do not: the Sunday Times magazine. They figured out that getting noticed means not being one of many choices, but being the only choice in a publication in their category.

Mt. Sinai and Rosetta Stone have similar strategies. Mt. Sinai is positioning itself as the hospital for intelligent ...