Book Byte #117 "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding" by Al and Laura Ries
How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand
📣 Curious Quotes from the Author
“Today brands are born, not made. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable publicity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace.”
“Success in business inflates the egos of top management.”
“What should a brand leader advertise? Brand leadership, of course. Leadership is the single most important motivating factor in consumer behavior.”
“Building your brand on quality is like building your house on sand. You can build quality into your product, but that has little to do with your success in the marketplace.”
“Quality is a nice thing to have, but brands are not built by quality alone.”
“Issue is clear. It’s the difference between building brands and milking brands. Most managers want to milk. “How far can we extend the brand? Let’s spend some serious research money and find out.” Sterling Drug was a big advertiser and a big buyer of research. Its big brand was Bayer aspirin, but aspirin was losing out to acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil). So Sterling launched a $116-million advertising and marketing program to introduce a selection of five “aspirin-free” products. The Bayer Select line included headache-pain relief, regular pain relief, nighttime pain relief, sinus-pain relief, and a menstrual relief formulation, all of which contained either acetaminophen or ibuprofen as the core ingredient. Results were painful. The first year Bayer Select sold $26 million worth of pain relievers in a $2.5 billion market, or about 1 percent of the market. Even worse, the sales of regular Bayer aspirin kept falling at about 10 percent a year. Why buy Bayer aspirin if the manufacturer is telling you that its “select” products are better because they are “aspirin-free”? Are consumers stupid or not?”
“Today brands are born, not made. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable publicity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. And just how do you generate publicity? The best way to generate publicity is by being first. In other words, by being the first brand in a new category.”
“If “what is the size of the market?” is the first question your company asks itself, then you are taking the wrong road to success.”
📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea:
The most successful brands recognize that beauty is subjective and varies from person to person. Perception is everything. So, if you want to build a brand that stands out from the crowd and leaves a lasting impression, you must produce a clear and simple statement that distinguishes you from your competition. Good branding narrows the emphasis, ensures consistency, and determines what distinguishes a company.
Color may help you stand out.
Color is an excellent approach to differentiate oneself since it allows you to tap into popular symbolic connotations. So, if you're in the health-food business, green may be a suitable choice because of its relationship to nature. If you prefer expensive things, consider purple, a color associated with royalty. Healthcare products, on the other hand, may benefit from the idea of purity that white conveys.
🛠️Fixing the Tech Industry
Branding is important part of who you are. You don’t necessarily have to create the brand of you, but just be yourself and share that with other people. Whether your in your early or Mid-life Career, everything you do has an outcome on your reputation, and it’s very much a “death by a thousand cuts” situation. Live up to your name or at least the ideals you want to be known for.
🤝Collaborate with others with this Social Media Prompt:
What color would you say defines you and your personality?
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