The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

I’ve completed reading "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding" and "Positioning". Both books are among the most thought-provoking works I’ve encountered on brand strategy. While reading "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding", I found the chapter on the Law of Divergence to be somewhat disconnected from modern branding realities. According to the book, categories tend to diverge as markets evolve, and convergence often results in brand dilution or failure. Yet, Amazon and the iPhone are two of the most successful brands today — both of which appear to contradict that claim. After some reflection, I believe the real issue isn’t about convergence versus divergence. Instead, it’s about branding strategy. My Conclusion: If a brand already holds a dominant position in one market, it can successfully expand into an adjacent or broader market — even one that appears to be a convergence or line extension — by creating and owning a new category in the prospect’s mind, especially when no dominant player yet exists in that space. Case in Point: iPhone The iPhone merged multiple functions — music player, video player, phone, social media, browser etc. — which on the surface seems to violate the Law of Divergence. But Apple didn’t market it as a mash-up of old categories. Instead, it positioned the iPhone as a breakthrough product in a new category: smartphones. At the time, there was no dominant smartphone brand in the minds of consumers. Apple claimed that space and won. Case in Point: Amazon Amazon began with a focused, divergent position as the world’s largest online bookstore. Over time, it expanded to sell electronics, clothing, groceries, and more. According to a strict interpretation of divergence theory, this kind of expansion under a single brand should have weakened its identity. But it didn’t — because no other brand had claimed leadership in e-commerce. Amazon filled that gap and successfully repositioned itself as “the everything store,” leading a new category: online commerce. Final Thought: So, the key isn’t convergence or divergence alone. It’s about category creation, brand leadership, and timing. When a brand can reposition itself into a new category and occupy a leadership position in the customer’s mind — even if it combines previously separate functions — it can still win. Great books! These books transformed me into a new addict of positioning and branding.

Good read , enhanced my knowledge on a lot things , and I was able to relate this to all the business brands

This book is a must read for anyone with responsibilities in branding because it gives some great advice and guidlines to get your mind muscles working. My biggest problem with the book is that they take an anti-extension position, which is dead on, but they don't recognize that brand managers don't live in a perfect world and sometimes find themselves in situations where they HAVE to extend the brand or find a new job. Don't look back, but that's Al and Laura sawing off the branch that you're standing on. There's absolutely no guidance in this book that would give you some reasonable rules to follow in the event that you have little choice but to brand extend. The most recent example that shatters their immutable law about brand extending weakening a brand is the Apple iPod. Everybody is aware that the iPod is an Apple product. Apple didn't have the first MP3 player in the industry. Instead, Apple had a frame of reference built into their brand, as well as a point of difference (the strongest branding tool there is). While there are a lot of examples of failed brand extensions, there are also a lot of examples of successful ones. There is a fundamental science behind what makes a brand extension work so that it re-inforces the parent brand, rather than acts parasitically. The weakness of this book is that it tries to present the last word on the subject without acknowledging the successes on other side of the coin. I would give this book 3 1/2 stars if I could, but since I can't, I'll round up to 4 based on the easy style of this book, as it presents some powerful concepts in an conversational and easy to grasp way that includes a lot of brain fodder to stew on.

Man, what a true gem of a book there is when it comes to branding and core principles needed to build a great business. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and 11 Laws of Internet Branding is definitely a foundational book that any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur must read along their journey. Al and Laura Ries do a great job of analyzing and simply explaining what it is that makes great brands stand out from generic ones. They highlight concepts and ideas that I hadn’t even thought of when it comes to certain brands and why I support some and not others. Not only does The 22 Immutable Laws provide great insight, but it is such an EASY read as well. I’m so surprised at how quickly I’ve been able to read and finish this book. That just goes to show the writing skill that Al and Laura possess along with their branding expertise. Very great book that will definitely be read again and again throughout my business and entrepreneurial journey. Highly recommend to any and all!

As a marketing professional with an advertising degree and fifteen years of experience, the more marketing I do, the more these "Immutable Laws of Branding" seem come into play. When I first read this book six or seven years ago, I thought, "Well, I understand and agree with most of the precepts, but not all of them." But, as I've managed marketing campaigns and projects over the years, whenever one wouldn't get the results I wanted (or expected), after going back and reviewing it, the issue oftentimes could be clearly tied back to the violation of at least a couple of the "laws." The biggest problem with the book isn't anything in the book itself. The biggest problem revolves around what most people think marketing and branding is or does (or should do). So, for the most part, even most professional marketers operate on their already understood beliefs about marketing. They take "common sense" approaches to solving branding problems (which are always unique) and then wonder why they didn't get the results they wanted. Common sense is just that, "COMMON." This book explains the importance of a brand being unique and singular in its focus. So, if you take common sense approaches to unique problems, you'll get an "average" result. To me, continually obtaining "average" results is a sure fire road to ultimate failure. So, I recommend this book for marketing and non-marketing professionals with a couple of caveats... Realize that this book is very, very focused on developing and managing a brand. It doesn't give you an economic model that tells you how to price your product or service, or how you should set up a distribution channel (but, if you fully grasp the concepts, it will give you ideas on how to make decisions like these). Most importantly, keep an open mind as you read and realize that many of the concepts in the book will absolutely be COUNTER-INTUITIVE. You will most likely flat out disagree some of them, but I would challenge you to read the book in its entirety and then, over time see if and how the "laws" apply. You may be pleasantly surprised over the years (just as I have been) and end up with this one being one of your favorite marketing books as well.

What is a brand? Is it a name? A logo? A funky design or attitude? A brand is a symbol for an idea. More specifically, a brandname is a word that can be uttered in any country, in any `language' and mean the same thing. If a company is consistent and strong in repeating the same message over and over, in time, its brandname will become synonymous with an idea. If the company keeps changing its stripes, the name never catches on, and means nothing. McDonalds is about Family Food. Subway is about Fresh. Pepsi is about Fun If you get really good at this, as a Brand Manager, and you create a brand new product and its name can describe an entire category. A few examples of unbeatable brandnames often mistaken for actual words:Xerox.Band-Aid.RollerBlade. Even the iPod for a time was the `placeholder' word that meant `Digital Music Player'. Moreover, brands are not only synonymous with ideas, they're synonymous with colors. Again, this only works if, after decades of promotion, the company has been consistent:Coca Cola is Red. IBM is Blue. John Deere is Green The list here is short, because frankly, many companies screw this up. They pick the wrong color. They don't pick a color. They pick two colors. Pepsi, though a very successful company, foolishly picked Red and Blue as their colors when going up against the Red of Coca Cola (the leader in the market). Obviously, they should have just gone with deep Blue. They figured it out eventually, but they're still stuck with a blue and red logo. Oops. Not only are companies brands, but people are brands too: How can a man or woman have a strong brand? Stephen King has a brand (though recently he's moved away from horror). Stanley Kubrick had one. So did Steve Jobs. Kobe Bryant and Lebron James have brands too (you have to actually have a brand before you can get paid to put it on a shoe or T-shirt, by the way). Anna Kournikova used to have a brand, but she doesn't play tennis anymore. These are names. And these are people who at some point in their lives were the first at doing something. They found their niche and they excelled. They achieved tremendous success often at a young age. And yes, People can have colors. In the latter half of his career, Steve Jobs was almost never seen (even by his family) without his signature black mock turtleneck. Remember Eminem's white T-shirt and dyed hair? Same thing. When Eminem went away from that, he largely went away from the spotlight. He's basically a producer now. How do you build your corporate and personal brand? Surprisingly, it's not done with ads. In a bit of brilliant irony, most people watching TV (eg. Superbowl ads) assume that advertisements are trying to push a companies products and brands to growth. After all, don't we hear about a company for the first time, when their new product comes out? No. Wrong. That might be what some short-lived companies are trying to do, but that's not possible. The only way to grow is through publicity. And how do you get publicity? How do you get in the New York Times and Financial Post? You get there by being the first and the best. Only when you've achieved something of this stature do you start advertising-not to grow marketshare, but to maintain marketshare you already have. Maybe that's why Amazon.com doesn't need to advertise. And up until recently, Microsoft Windows didn't need advertising either. How could these two companies advertise when they seemed to have no competitors? So look at your own career right now: are you the best in the city at anything? Best in the Country? Best in the world? How can you be number 1 at something? Shrink your focus until you are number one. So, how do you grow? By always being #1, not by growing so much beyond your niche that you're no longer number one. Read that last line again. Look at Amazon: they used to be the worlds biggest bookstore. Now they're calling themselves `Earth's Biggest Selection'. Kinda vague and...is it even true? Probably. But it also means now they're competing against... Wal-Mart. Was that the original Amazon brand? Buying clothes and electronics? No way. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is very smart, so he can probably pull it off, but it also leaves room for other companies to swoop in and focus on books. That's probably what the guys at Barnes and Noble are telling themselves. Hopefully, you don't have to worry about competitors like Amazon. Hopefully you don't have to worry about what color their logo is, and what their market share is, because hopefully your company, your product (and your ideas and your personality) are so good that you don't have to own a current market, because you created a new one and own that. More reviews like this on 21tiger

This book contains the (infamous) 22 laws of branding according to Al Ries & Laura Ries. If you're looking for the Reader's Digest version of the message, here it is: * Be first (invent your own category). * Keep it simple and focused. * Don't extend the brand; expand its category. But really, why take my word for the book's message when it's such a fun read? The language is simple, and there are plenty of images. You can skim right through it, or take the time to review the examples he gives of how big brands did the right (or wrong) things and come up with your own counter-examples. This book isn't just for big brands; the 22 laws generally apply to smaller businesses too. They point out that you shouldn't necessarily do the same things big companies do to become successful, even the ones known for success with branding. If you want to get rich by doing what rich people do, what you'll get is broke. You have to do what rich people did before they got rich. Yes, big company branding is what they're still teaching in most business classes. Just say no if you're growing a smaller organization. The addition of The 11 Immutable Laws of Branding on the Internet turned out to be a disappointment. The problem is that the Internet is a fast-moving target, and the book was written a few years back (its copyright is 2002). When they say: The Internet will be the first new medium that will not be dominated by advertising... it's based on the way the Internet was then (remember bright flashing banner ads?) If the Internet isn't going to be dominated by advertising, you'd never know it by Google's advertising revenues. Advertising on the 'net is here to stay, and can be a key component of your marketing plan. Still, a great book, and a fun, fast, worthwhile read. I recommend it to anyone responsible for revenue growth.

One of the best straight forward, to the point, apply immediately and get a better result books you can buy on a marketing subject. I had worked in the business world for fifteen years before I started my own one man operation twenty eight years ago. I have read many marketing books, I read economic, marketing, and small business articles all the time, and I focus on those same subjects on news and talk shows ('Your Business" w/ J. J. Ramberg Sunday mornings on MSNBC, etc.). This book is one of the best collections of immediately applicable high quality marketing information you are ever going to find. There may be many books just as good as this one, but none better. P.S. You should also buy 'The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing' and 'Positioning' by the same authors. They will be the best set of marketing books you will own.

An excellent book that I wish I had read earlier in my marketing career. Breaks down principles so that they are easy to understand with examples and everything. Really clever and I loved it!

Me parece un libro muy interesante, fácil y rápido de leer, con muchos ejemplos útiles, aunque se repite un poco habiendo leído antes "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" del mismo autor.

Well worth reading, and although written a number of years ago, I still find it useful in getting the all-important topic of branding right. This book is useful whether you are a big company or a one-man show. The most useful theme for me is the need to focus in terms of products or services. They give great examples of mega famous companies who got it right - and who got it wrong and lost their focus. Their initial predictions on convergence held true for many years, although these days where media and channels are in fact merging may mean that that is open to debate, however their immutable laws still seem to hold. Highly accessible and readable with plenty of practical suggestions.

Great/must addition to your knowledge bag

Even an accomplished business person will find some interesting laws in this condensed but rich manual. Each law relates to a particular company success to expose its principle. For example, the Law of Fellowship, which underlines why it is important for 2 similar companies to be based nearby (ej. Nero and Starbucks or McDonald's and Burger King).