The Strategic Enemy: How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For
Laura Ries
Wiley (September 2025)

How and why the “strategic enemy” is a critically important positioning tool

The marketing classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981), was co-authored by Al Ries (Laura Ries’s father) and Jack Trout.  The Strategic Enemy has just been published and at a time when competition for brand supremacy is even more ferocious than when it was at any prior time, at least that I can recall.

In essence, marketing is a process by which to create or increase demand for whatever the given offering may be. According to Laura Ries, “The basic premise of positioning was this: Brands should try to occupy a specific ‘position’ in the mind of consumers…[Ries and Trout ] also took a very strong stand against creativity, not so much that they were opposed to it but because  they wanted to establish a position in the mind for positioning. According to my dad, ‘You’ve got to knock out the enemy before you can occupy the position.’

“Positioning took off not just because it was a great concept but also because it repositioned the enemy it called [begin italics] creativity [end italics]. Your brand needs to do the same.”

She goes on to point out that marketing is an art as much as it is a science. Each case is unique, and we have studied thousands of brands. When correctly executed, using positioning, focus, the strategic enemy, and a visual hammer will win out almost every time.”

“Positioning your brand against a strategic enemy makes your brand sharper and more memorable and unites people to your cause. Yet most companies continue to fosus on ‘being better’ and ‘expanding the brand’ rather than on what really matters: being different…This book will show you how finding a strategic enemy will make your brand something worth fighting for.”

So, what is a “strategic enemy”? Ries is convinced — and I wholly agree — that to achieve its  marketing and sales objectives, your brand “must be first in something by either pioneering a new category or narrowing your focus. If you look back in hstory, almost every successful brand story begins this way. They all focused and stronglynpositioned themselves against a clear strategic enemy.”

For example:

o Colgate was the first toothpaste in a tube. Enemy: toothpowder
o Tide was the first heavy-duty synthetic detergent. Enemy: soap
o Tropicana was the first orange juice sold nov from concentrate. Enemy: frozen concentrate.

o The enemy of Pepsi is Coca-Cola.
o The enemy of Target is Walmart.
o The enemy of Uber is taxis.
o The enemy of Dude Wipes is toilet paper.
o The enemy of UNTUCKit is tucked shirts.
o The enemy of Dockers is dress pants.

Ries:’s key points:  “When you define what you are against, it becomes clear what you are for. The mind understands opposition faster than superiority. The strategic enemy could be a competitor, category, concept or convention. The strategic enemy of a new category is the old category.”

I am again reminded of Marshall Goldsmith’s assertion that “whatever got you here won’t get you there.” I take that a step further: “Whatever got you here won’t even allow you to remain here, much less get you there, however and wherever you define ‘here’ and ‘there.'”

With rare exception, an organization’s #1 competitor (i.e. “enemy”) is itself and its most serious wounds tend to be self-inflicted. Laura Ries offers dozens of dos and don’ts as well as hundreds of examples throughout her lively narrative.