22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF BRANDING

BY AL RIES & LAURA RIES

BOOK REVIEW

The focus of this book is summed up in its last paragraph, which reads “What’s a brand?:

A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect. It is as simple and as

difficult as that.”

BOOK REVIEW

Throughout the book the authors stress the need to focus, to contract rather than to

expand, to differentiate, to strive for singularity.

LAW OF EXPANSION

“The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope”

LAW OF EXPANSION

The emphasis in most companies is on the short term.

Line extension, mega branding, variable pricing & a host of other sophisticated

marketing techniques are used to milk the brands rather then building them.

LAW OF EXPANSION- COSMOPOLITAN YOGURT

Cosmopolitan is distributed in more than 100 countries, making it one of the most dynamic brands on the planet. You could say it's got this "magazine thing" down pat. All the more reason why it should stick to what it does best.

One thing Cosmo does not do best is brand and sell yogurt. Yes, yogurt. From the time of its release, the yogurt was supposedly off of the shelves in 18 months.

LAW OF EXPANSION- FRITO LAY LEMONADE

Frito Lay Lemonade might seem like a good idea:

Eating salty corn chips makes you thirsty, and lemonade can cure that thirst.

Unfortunately, when people think Fritos, "thirst-quenching" is not an adjective that comes to mind.

Therefore, Frito Lay's "logical" brand extension turned out to not be so logical after all.

LAW OF CONTRACTION

“A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus”

LAW OF CONTRACTION

When you dominate the category your brand becomes powerful.

LAW OF CONTRACTION

Most retail category killers follow the same 5 step approach

Narrow the focus Stock in depth Buy Cheap Sell Cheap Dominate the Category

LAW OF CONTRACTION

Good things happen when you narrow the focus

LAW OF CONTRACTION

Good things happen when you narrow the focus

has 90% market for operating systems

has 80% market for micro processors

has 70% of Cola Market Share

LAW OF CONTRACTION- SAFFOLA

LAW OF NAME

“In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name”

LAW OF NAME

All factors being equal the brand with better name will come out on top.

LAW OF NAME

A name which signifies the product is quite apt. Example Coca Cola & Fivi quick

A single name should not be used every where example Mitsubishi – Motors, electronics,

Appliances, Switches

LAW OF NAME- TOUCH OF YOGURT SHAMPOO

The shampoo failed to attract consumers (in 1979) largely because nobody liked the idea of washing their hair with yogurt. Of those who did buy it, there were even some cases of people mistakenly eating it, and getting very ill as a result.

LAW OF PUBLICITY

“The birth of brand is achieved with publicity and not advertising”

LAW OF PUBLICITY

You can help sustain a brand with advertising but building a brand gets done through

publicity.

LAW OF PUBLICITY- BODY SHOP

Anita Roddick created the Body Shop in 1976 around the concept of ”natural” cosmetics, made of pure ingredients, not tested on animals, and kind to both the environment and the people indigenous to the communities in which the products originated.

With virtually no advertising, but with massive amounts of publicity, the Body Shop has become a powerful global brand.

LAW OF ADVERTISING

“Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy”

LAW OF ADVERTISING

Advertising budget is like country’s defense budget.

Leaders should look on their advertising budgets as insurance that will protect them

against losses caused by competitive attacks.

LAW OF ADVERTISING- PEPSI

LAW OF ADVERTISING- PEPSI

LAW OF THE WORD

“A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer”

LAW OF THE WORD

“If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the

prospect's mind. A word that nobody else owns.”

LAW OF THE WORD

You know your brands owns the category name when people use your brand name generally.

Xerox- Make me a “xerox-copy” it is not any secret how it manages to become generic

name it was the first in its category.

LAW OF THE WORD- MAGGI NOODLES

Maggi noodles became successful by being the first snack that gets cooked in just 2 minutes, thereby owning the word “2 minute” in the mind of the mind of the consumer become synonymous to Maggi noodles.

LAW OF CREDENTIALS

“The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity”

LAW OF CREDENTIALS

It is the collateral you put up to guarantee the performance of your brand.

LAW OF CREDENTIALS

Leadership is the most direct way to establish the credentials of a brand.

Coca Cola, Hertz, Heinz, Visa and Kodak all have credentials because they are widely

perceived to be leading brand in their categories.

LAW OF CREDENTIALS- COLGATE

LAW OF THE CATEGORY

“A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand”

LAW OF THE CATEGORY

The best way for the brand leader to build sales is to promote the category, not their specific brand.

This is a more effective way to build up overall market awareness and interest, and the brand leader will naturally benefit to a greater degree than other competitors, by virtue of their larger

market share.

LAW OF THE CATEGORY

Consumers don’t really care about new brands, they care about new categories. They don’t

care about Domino’s they care whether or not their pizza will arrive in half an hour.

LAW OF THE CATEGORY – AMUL

LAW OF QUALITY

“Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone”

LAW OF QUALITY

In fact, most people have no idea as to the “real” quality of a product or service. Is a Rolex really better at keeping time than a

Timex? How do you know?

LAW OF QUALITY

If you want to build a powerful brand , you have to build a powerful perception of quality

in the mind.

Brands will better name will come on top.

Omnibus brands are weak not strong.

LAW OF QUALITY

VS

LAW OF SHAPE

“A brand’s logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes”

LAW OF SHAPE

A customer sees the world through two horizontally mounted eyes peering out of his or her head. It’s like looking out the windshield of

an automobile.

For maximum visual impact, a logotype should have the same shape as a windshield, roughly

two and one-fourth units wide and one unit high.

LAW OF SHAPE

The other component of the logotype i.e. the trademark or symbol is also overrated.

It’s the NIKE name that gives meaning to the smooth symbol. If the symbol is associated

with the name for a long time, the symbol can represent the name.

LAW OF SHAPE

Example: Nike, Addidas, Mercedes & Vodafone.

LAW OF COLOUR

“A brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitor’s”

LAW OF COLOUR- IDEA VS AIRTEL

LAW OF COLOUR

There are thousands of words to choose from in order to create a unique name, but only a

handful of colours.

Basically there are 5 colours i.e. red, orange, yellow, green & blue. Plus neutral colours i.e.

black, grey & white.

LAW OF COLOUR

Red – Is the colour of energy & excitement. Red is retail colour use to attract attention.

Blue – Is opposite of red it’s peaceful and tranquil. Corporate colour mostly used to communicate stability.

Orange – More like red.

Green – colour of environment & health

White – purity

Black – luxury

LAW OF COLOUR- CADBURY

What color is the colour of Cadbury chocolate wrapper?

It’s that distinctive purple and white. All Cadbury chocolate

variants have the same colours.

If Cadbury had used a variety of colours for its wrappers, it would have lost a marvelous opportunity to reinforce the

brand name with a distinctive color.

LAW OF BORDERS

“There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders”

LAW OF BORDERS

In fact, the perfect solution to increase the brands market and need to grow is to take

brand global rather then expanding the line.

With some 70% of its sales & 80%of its profit outside, the United States, Coco-Cola insist

that it is a global brand and not an American brand. But it would be major marketing

mistake by Coco-Cola to abandon its American heritage. Every brand has to be from

somewhere.

LAW OF BORDERS

For many years the magic word on many product has been ‘imported’. Since value lies

in the mind of the consumer, the perception of where the brand came from can add or

subtract value.

Does anyone doubt the value of watches from Switzerland, automobiles from Germany ,

electronic products from Japan and hash from Afghanistan.

LAW OF EXTENSION

“The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything”

LAW OF EXTENSION

The issue here is people don’t understand that there is a difference between building brands

and milking them.

Most managers want to milk.

LAW OF EXTENSION- PEDIGREE

Pedigree is known for Dog food. It did a big mistake by launching corn flakes for human with the same name and the product failed miserably.

It should have launched the product with a different name without having any reference to Pedigree.

LAW OF EXTENSIONBEN-GAY ASPIRIN

Ben-Gay cream is great for topically relieving aches and pains.

But the idea of swallowing Ben-Gay? Not so appealing. That was the problem the company faced when they tried to launch an aspirin.

Their first brand extension, Ultra-Strength Ben-Gay, was essentially the same product as the original and was very successful. The aspirin? Not so much. 

LAW OF EXTENSION

If the market is moving out from you, you stay where you are and launch a second brand. It

it’s not stay where you are and continue building your brand.

LAW OF FELLOWSHIP

“In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands”

LAW OF FELLOWSHIP

The dominant brand in a category often tried to broaden its appeal in order to capture every last bit of market share. The law of expansion

suggests the opposite.

When you broaden your brand, you weaken it.

LAW OF FELLOWSHIP

Choice stimulates demand.

This is law is also seen in retail arena. Where 1 store may not make it, several stores will.

LAW OF FELLOWSHIP- TELECOMMUNICATION IND

Airtel Vodafone Idea Virgin Loop Docomo

LAW OF THE GENERIC

“One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name”

LAW OF THE GENERIC

Majority of brand communication takes place verbally not visually.

The average person spends nine times as much time listening to radio & television the

he/she does in reading magazines or newspapers

LAW OF THE GENERIC

The printed word is secondary to the sound that it generates in the reader’s mind.

What you should do is to find a regular word taken out of context and use to connote

primary attributes of the brand.

LAW OF THE GENERIC

Lakme comes from the word Laxmi (Goddess)

Toyota took the word ‘Luxury’ , tweaked a few letters and came up with Lexus, a super brand name for Japanese luxury car.

LAW OF THE COMPANY

“Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference”

LAW OF THE COMPANY

Nothing causes as much confusion in the branding process as the proper use of

company name.

Brand name should always take precedence over company name.

LAW OF THE COMPANY

Consumers buy brand they don’t buy companies.

So when a company name is used alone as a brand name, customers see these names as

brands.

LAW OF THE COMPANY

Killer jeans company name Arvind Khare Group

LAW OF SUB BRANDS

“What branding builds, sub branding can destroy”

LAW OF SUB BRANDS

The essence of a brand is some idea or attribute or market segment you can own in

the mind. Subbranding is a concept that takes the brand in exactly the opposite direction.

Subbranding destroys what branding builds.

LAW OF SUB BRANDS

The name ‘Chevrolet’ used to stand for something. Now, what is it? A large, small,

cheap, expensive car or truck.

LAW OF SIBLINGS

“There is a time and a place to launch a second brand”

LAW OF SIBLINGS

Strategy of sibling is not for everybody if handled incorrectly second brand can dilute

the power of the first brand.

LAW OF SIBLINGS

But in some situation a family of brands can be developed that will ensure company’s control of a market for many decades to come. Eg.

HUL & P&G

LAW OF SIBLINGS

When Honda wanted to introduce an expensive car, it didn’t call the brand a Honda Plus of a Honda Ultra. It developed a new brand called

Acura, which became a big success.

As a matter of fact, Acura quickly became the largest-selling imported luxury car in America.

LAW OF CONSISTENCY

“A brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not

years”

LAW OF CONSISTENCY

Once a position is occupied in the minds brand managers often find reasons to change.

LAW OF CONSISTENCY

Mc Donalds a kids hamburger brand experimented with being an adult brand and

opened Arch Deluxe – Result a failure

LAW OF CONSISTENCY- COLGATE KITCHEN ENTREES

In what must be one of the most bizarre brand extensions ever Colgate decided to use its name on a range of food products called Colgate's Kitchen Entrees. Needless to say, the products did not take off and never left U.S. soil.The idea must have been that consumers would eat their Colgate meal, then brush their teeth with Colgate toothpaste. The trouble was that for most people the name Colgate does not exactly get their taste buds tingling.

LAW OF CHANGE

“Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and very carefully”

LAW OF CHANGE

First look in the mind of the consumer where you are ?

LAW OF CHANGE

3 scenarios

1. Your Brand is weak or non existent in the mind

Intel DRAM became Intel Inside

LAW OF CHANGE

2. You Want to move your brand down the food chain

Easy to move down but very difficult to move up

3. Change is going to take place over an extended period of timeXerox Computers ?????Gatorade Colas ??????

LAW OF CHANGE- UTI TO AXIS

LAW OF MORTALITY

“No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution”

LAW OF MORTALITY

Brands are Born, grow, mature and eventually die.

Technology paves way for new brands.

LAW OF MORTALITY

Is it really worth putting Monies in keeping a dead brand alive.

Kodak - How many people will still want to use Films ??????

LAW OF SINGULARITY

“The most important aspect of a brand is its single mindedness”

LAW OF SINGULARITY

“The most important aspect of a brand is its single mindedness”

LAW OF SINGULARITY

Singularity helps a brand perform its most important function

Expensive Swiss Watch Safe Car

LAW OF SINGULARITY

Brand is nothing but a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect. As

simple and Difficult as that

LAW OF SINGULARITY – CLOSE UP

THANK YOU