Dick Maggiore is co-founder, president and CEO of Innis Maggiore, America’s No. 1 Positioning Ad Agency. Dick is said to be America’s pre-eminent practitioner of positioning. 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. Positioning was named as the most important marketing concept of the 20th century in Advertising Age, the advertising industry’s leading publication.
Dick says unless they have a solid foundation in positioning, even the most clever and creative marketing programs and advertising campaigns are doomed to fail. He goes so far as to say companies that ignore positioning in their advertising are wasting their dollars. Dick practices what he preaches as he leads the agency’s team in putting positioning into practice for the benefit of such clients as Alcoa, Bank of America, Disney, Goodyear, Microsoft, PURELL, Republic Steel, Shearer’s Snacks, Smith’s Dairy and hundreds of other companies and institutions.
Dick is an ad industry “Hall of Famer” for pioneering dimensional outdoor advertising. In 1998, the Canton Chapter of the American Advertising Federation named him Ad Person of the Year. In 2003, Dick received the distinguished Community Salute Award from the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce. In 2004, Dick received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and in 2009, Kent State University’s Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award. He is a 2013 recipient of the Distinguished Sales & Marketing Award from Sales & Marketing Executives International. In 2015, citing his more than three decades of service and leadership, Canton Advertising Federation bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on Dick.
Dick has addressed a diverse group of organizations over the years and is a lecturer at the University of Akron, Kent State University and Walsh University. He enjoys sharing his positioning expertise with the next generation of marketing professionals.
Dick holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from San Francisco State University. He lives in North Canton with his wife, Kathi.