I just finished reading a fascinating book – The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. Authored by Al Ries and Laura Ries.
Written in typical ‘Al Ries’ breezy style, the book summarizes the fundamentals of branding. 22 of them to be specific. Most of the laws given in the book are basic, rudimentary and so fundamental that you know most of them – and forgotten many of them too!
Which is why when you read all of them again - in one go, with lots of examples – you realize how much they make sense and how simple Branding actually is.
22 laws might sound a tad too many but the book is worth giving a try. Here are the 22 laws – with a brief description of each one of them. If it interests you enough, you would go and read the entire book. If not, you still would have got the gist of the book – thanks to this blog!
1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.
2. The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.
3. The Law of Publicity: The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.
4. The Law of Advertising: Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.
5. The Law of the Word: A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
6. The Law of Credentials: The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
7. The Law of Quality: Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
8. The Law of the Category: A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand.
9. The Law of the Name: In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.
10. The Law of Extensions: The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything.
11. The Law of Fellowship: In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands.
12. The Law of the Generic: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.
13. The Law of the Company: Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference.
14. The Law of Sub-brands: What branding builds, sub-branding can destroy.
15. The Law of Siblings: There is a time and a place to launch a second brand.
16. The Law of Shape: A brand’s logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes.
17. The Law of Colour: A brand should use a colour that is the opposite of its major competitor’s.
18. The Law of Borders: There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders.
19. The Law of Consistency: A brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not years.
20. The Law of Change: Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully.
21. The Law of Morality: No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution.
22. The Law of Singularity: The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness.
11 comments:
Trust me, reading this blog took me back to my Branding classes in MBA...Listening to the Master speak...Wow...(No prizes for guessing who the Master is :)) I'll be dammed if I raise any questions on this!! I wouldn't too...This is more of a clarification...
Law 8 said Law of the category where it said a leading brand must promote the category. HUL has two or three brands under a single category...Rin, Wheel and Surf Excel under "Detergents" and Clinic Plus and Sunsilk under "Shampoos". Does the law mean the "Rin", "Wheel" and "Surf Excel" should promote the "Detergents" category of HUL or should it be promoting "Detergents" as a category on the whole?
Great points. I would struggle to find any aspect of branding which is not encompassed within these 22 points.
All these 22 points are again substantiating your earlier post "Brand extensions are extinctions"...aren't they?
That was really informative, a quick drive through the whole concept of branding. Great work!
Satheesh, what is u'r favourite book on marketing, that u haven't read and longing to read..reply must..plzz
Yo anonymous: Yes, a few of Ries' laws are anti brand extension, much like what I believe in as well. Also, a book would be 'favourite' only after one reads it and likes it. Wouldn't it! Anyway, to answer your question, I have bought a few marketing books which I intend reading soon: Kellog's on Branding is top of that list.
With Inflation touching double digit figures and prices of almost all commodities increasing, this definitely has left a hole in consumer's pockets. I read an article in Business Standard titled "Will marketers remain buoyant?" and you being part of this field, your opinions definitely matter. With respect to necessities, Indian housewives are known to compromise on quality and imagery to get a better price. And with such rising prices, do you feel the Indian consumer would move down to unbranded stuff or move to lower priced brands? How do you think marketers should react? Increasing advertising may not be a smart thing to do because that would only add on to costs and thereon to the final price. Which category do you think will be hurt the most? So does this mean bad days for premium and high priced brands?
Would definitely love to have your opinion on this
It sounded very stupid right? I meant..your favourite author. Anyway,thnx for that reply Satheesh..
This is to Aarthi..
With your permission, I would like to use some of the space in u'r blog Satheesh, hope you don't mind..
Aarthi, here's some interesting piece of information from one of the marketing blogs.Hope it interests you too..
"Does the idea of a weak economy scare you? It shouldn't
We've been hearing it now for months: The economy is weak. The Dollar is weak. Business is suffering. It's all very apocalyptic, and for marketers, you might think it's a scary time. After all, you have revenue to bring in and customers to keep coming back.
But here's why a struggling economy should excite rather than scare you:
1. Customers are shopping around more than ever. When people are more price-sensitive, they compare costs and levels of service between companies more often, which means customers that may previously been out of reach to you might be looking your way now. It's a great time to acquire new customers.
2. The weak economy will weed out the weak companies. This is survival of the fittest! If you're a strong company, it's time to rejoice, because soon you'll have less competition to worry about and more customers to gain. If you're currently weaker than you want to be, now is a great time to begin making the changes you've been putting off to become a great company.
3. Customers are looking for companies to trust. Show you care about and are there for your customers in difficult times, and go out of your way to make sure their experiences are great. Do it well and they will be loyal to you for years to come. Now is the time to invest in your customers with solid CRM marketing.
4. Every change is an opportunity. This change happens to include challenges that can be easily foreseen, which is, in fact, great news for marketers. Now you can look at your organization holistically and understand more precisely how your actions might affect your business. What's more, since the struggle is universal, you can glean great insights from everyone else who is working to deal with the situation.
There's no denying that a struggling economy is difficult on everyone, but with that comes great marketing opportunities that can help you grow your customer base, increase the lifetime value of existing customers and stand out from competitors like never before. Take advantage of it!"
- Drew McLellan
Would love to know your comments on this Satheesh.
Thanks Anonymous for that Article...It did interest me an that article's true too. I was just reading it and thought I'll bring it here to discuss. But Sir, I want your opinion too....That counts for me. And does that mean slightly high priced brands of HUL would take a beating?
This comment has nothing to do with your post. But it would be very convenient if you could write a post on SEC classification. What are the exact parameters used for determining if you belong to SEC A1/A2, B, C or whatever.... if you could explain it probably with the help of a chart, plotting where we draw the line between SEC A and B and C, i think it would make a great post.
Anonymous and Aarthi, first apologies for my late reply. I am not sure you can paint the entire Indian Consumer with the same brush. Not all consumers are price conscious. The Southern Market, especially Tamil Nadu, has never been very price conscious. On the contrary, it's very very brand conscious. It's Surf and not Nirma in detergents that leads here. It's Clinic Plus and not Chik that leads in shampoos. And the story continues in most brands. I think during trying economic times consumers might postpone certain high-end purchases and not all are going to downgrade. It has not happened in the past. There might be a few not-so-high-involvement categories (like magazines) where consumers might prefer to downgrade. There could be difficult-to-differentiate categories (like pickles, salt, wheat etc.,) where consumers might prefer private labels vis-a-vis branded ones. But I don't think consumers would downgrade en masse.
Thanks for writing this.
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