50 years as brand positioning experts: Innis Maggiore kicks off golden agency anniversary
Innis Maggiore is celebrating its golden anniversary.
CANTON, Ohio (Jan. 16, 2024) — Innis Maggiore, the nation’s leading positioning ad agency, today announced 2024 is its golden agency anniversary celebrating 50 years as brand positioning experts. The announcement marks the beginning of yearlong festivities focused on “Honoring the Past. Positioning the Future.”
Innis Maggiore was founded by the late Chuck Innis and Dick Maggiore at their kitchen table in 1974. The agency grew quickly and was named Ohio’s fastest-growing agency three years in a row by Advertising Age magazine. Innis Maggiore remains independently owned, and today is ranked in the top 10% of the nation's agencies.
Above all, Innis Maggiore attributes achieving its golden agency anniversary to a dedicated focus as brand positioning experts. Positioning is the process by which a brand (a company, product, or service) is marketed with the goal of owning a meaningful and differentiated idea in the mind of the customer. Jack Trout and Al Ries first coined the term in 1969 in an article, “Positioning is a game people play in today’s me-too marketplace” in Industrial Marketing magazine. The original article can be read here.
Maggiore doubled down on the concept of positioning once Jack Trout and Al Reis published their first book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981). The strategy revolutionized Innis Maggiore’s approach to advertising. Eventually, even Trout — the father of positioning — came to understand the agency’s truly important impact.
“Innis Maggiore, like no other agency, has successfully turned the principles laid out in our positioning books and created a disciplined practice,” said Trout. “These guys [Innis Maggiore] really do get it.”
Positioning is a strategy that works for all clients.
“For 50 years, our brand positioning experts have been executing effective positioning strategies for our clients,” said Dick Maggiore, chairman and CEO of Innis Maggiore. “Positioning has the power to work at the local level, for companies like Canton’s Custom Auto Body, and at the international level, for publicly traded companies like Babcock & Wilcox. It’s simple, really. Positioning clearly differentiates each client from its competition in a relevant and meaningful way.”
Technologies and channels may change, but the strategy remains the same.
“Things are always changing in advertising, like the advent of websites, digital advertising, and now, artificial intelligence, but the effectiveness of positioning only ever increases,” said Mark Vandegrift, president of Innis Maggiore. “In the original Trout and Ries article, they stress the reason for differentiation is the cluttered media space in 1969. Consider they only had TV, radio, newspaper/trade print, outdoor, and transit. Today, there are tens of thousands of new digital media and even our traditional channels have gone digital. The clutter is insane! It’s why positioning is needed more than ever before.”
Innis Maggiore is a full-service, integrated agency, offering clients advertising, creative, digital marketing, media, web, sales promotion, and public relations services. This broad capability provides an unbiased approach to developing marketing for its wide-ranging client base.
Innis Maggiore has plenty of activities in store for its golden agency anniversary this year, including special featured content, social media contests, an upcoming anniversary celebration, and more. All activities and events will highlight what the agency does best — positioning its clients for success.
About Innis Maggiore
Innis Maggiore Group is recognized as America’s leading positioning ad agency, building strong brand positions for companies around the world. The full-service integrated agency had 2023 capitalized billings of about $27 million. Some of its key clients include Advanced Power, Aultman Health System, AultCare Health Plans, Babcock & Wilcox, Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods, BellStores, The Center for Health Affairs, Encino Energy, FSBO.com, GOJO Industries (Purell), Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment, Harris Battery, KFC/Kendall House, Kobre & Kim, Lewis Services, MID’S True Sicilian Pasta Sauce, Midwest Industrial Supply, Pipeline Packaging/Hazmatpac, Prolectric (UK), Robertson Heating Supply Company, Roetzel & Andress, SimiTree, SmithFoods, Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA), Sunless Inc., Vern Dale Water Experts, and Young Trucks.