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To get into the consumer's mind, you have to sacrifice. You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute. An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category.

Al Ries

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Al Ries
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: November 14
Author
Economist
Atlanta
Georgia
Sacrifice
Consumer
Nobody
Reduce
Single
Attributes
Categories
Already
Brand
Else
Brands
Owns
Thought
Consumers
Attribute
Mind
Essence
Category

More quotes by Al Ries

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Successful brands get into the mind slowly. A blurb in a magazine. A mention in a newspaper. A comment from a friend. A display in a retail store. After a slow buildup, people become convinced that they have known about the brand forever.
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The Law of the Generic: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.
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What's your brand? If you can't answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand's in trouble.
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A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
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The real barrier (to building a brand) is the human mind. It normally takes decades to build a brand because it takes decades to penetrate the gray matter in between your ears.
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The essence of positioning is sacrifice. You must be willing to give up something in order to establish that unique position.
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A laser is a weak source of energy. A laser takes [only] a few watts of energy and focuses them in a coherent stream of light. But with a laser, you can drill a hole in a diamond or wipe out cancer.
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The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
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The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product.
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It's the first company to build the mental position that has the upper hand, not the first company to make the product. IBM didn't invent the computer Sperry Rand did. But IBM was the first to build the computer position in the prospect's mind.
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Everyone is interested in what‘s new. Few people are interested in what‘s better.
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Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.
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Strategy should evolve out of the mud of the marketplace, not in the antiseptic environment of an ivory tower.
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It's better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.
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Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world's first overcommunicated society. Each year we send more and receive less.
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Strategy and timing are the Himalayas of marketing. Everything else is the Catskills.
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What should a brand leader advertise?Brand leadership, of course. Leadership is the single most important motivating factor in consumer behavior.
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Advertising is the way great brands get to be great brands.
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The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospects mind.
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Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.
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