The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding Quotes

“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.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“Success in business inflates the egos of top management.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“Quality is a nice thing to have, but brands are not built by quality alone.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“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.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“What should a brand leader advertise? Brand leadership, of course. Leadership is the single most important motivating factor in consumer behavior.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“Futurist Faith Popcorn goes even further. By the year 2010, she predicts, 90 percent of all consumer products will be home-delivered. “They’ll put a refrigerator in your garage and bar code your kitchen. Every week they’ll restock your favorites, without your ever having to reorder. They’ll even pick up your dry cleaning, return your videotapes, whatever you need.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“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?”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“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.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“The 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?”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“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.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

“Take facsimile, for example. Over the past two decades, the facsimile has become an indispensable part of every company’s communication portfolio. Americans will send 65 billion pages of faxes this year, more than 230 per person. And 50 percent of all international telephone calls are now fax calls.”
― Al Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand