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THE LAW OF THE CONTRACTION: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.

Al Ries

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Al Ries
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: November 14
Author
Economist
Atlanta
Georgia
Contractions
Narrow
Brand
Brands
Stronger
Becomes
Focus
Law
Contraction

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The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.
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Everyone is interested in what‘s new. Few people are interested in what‘s better.
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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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Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.
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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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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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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.
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The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospects mind.
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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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A branding program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cattle on the range. Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.
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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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Changing the direction of a large company is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It takes a mile before anything happens. And if it was a wrong turn, getting back on course takes even longer.
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The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product.
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A successful branding program is based on the concept of singularity. It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product on the market quite like your product.
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If you can build a powerful brand, you will have a powerful marketing program. If you CAN'T then all the advertising, fancy packaging, sales promotion and public relations in the world won't help you achieve your objective.
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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 brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
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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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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.
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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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