The document outlines 22 immutable laws of branding, including: 1) Brands become stronger when they narrow their focus on a single word or concept. 2) Publicity, not just advertising, is important for launching a new brand. 3) Once established, brands need consistent advertising to stay strong in consumers' minds. 4) Brands should strive to own a word or concept in consumers' minds to become synonymous with that idea. 5) Brands are built over decades with consistency, not just years, to truly connect with consumers.

1. The 22 Immutable laws of
Branding
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2. 1. The law of Expansion
• The power of a brand is inversely proportional
to its scope
• Marketers constantly run branding programs
in conflict with people’s perception of their
brands. Customers want brands that are
narrow in scope and are distinguishable by a
single word, the shorter the better."
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3. • Chevrolet used to be the largest selling brand in
the US with 1,718,839 cars sold in 1986. But trying
to be all things to everyone undermined the brand
and today Chevy sells less than a million cars and is
no longer the market leader.
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4. 2. The law of Contraction
• A brand becomes stronger when you narrow
its focus
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5. • In a few short years Starbucks has become one of
US’s best known and most popular brands.
Narrowing one’s focus is not same as carrying a
limited line. Starbucks offers thirty different types of
coffees.
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6. 3. The law of Publicity
• The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not
advertising
• Advertising is best used to maintain a brand, but it is
very difficult and expensive to launch a new brand
through advertising alone
• The best way is to be first in a new product or service
category, and reap the attendant publicity
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7. • Anita Roddick created the concept of Body
Shop in 1976 around the concept of natural
cosmetics made of pure ingredients, no
animal testing and kind to environment and
indigenous people. With no advertising but
massive amounts of publicity, it is today a
powerful global brand.
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8. 4. The law of Advertising
• Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay
healthy
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9. • A consistent theme of Goodyear advertising
over the years has been #1 in tires. So who
makes the best tires? It must be Goodyear
thinks the customer. It’s the leader.
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10. 5. The law of the Word
• A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of
the consumer
• 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.
• Examples: Mercedes = prestige; Volvo = safety;
Kleenex = tissue; Xerox = copier; .
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11. • Federal Express became successful by
becoming the first air cargo carrier to narrow
its focus on overnight delivery thereby owning
the word overnight in customers minds. FedEx
has become synonymous with overnight
delivery.
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12. 6. The law of Credentials
• The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is
its claim to authenticity. The best claim is being the
leading product or service in your category,
because consumers assume that if it is a leading
seller, it must be good
• Never forget leadership. No matter how small the
market, don't get duped into simply selling the
benefits of the category
• There are also the long-term benefits of leadership.
Once you get on top, its hard to lose your spot.
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13. • In 1942, Coca Cola launched an Ad Campaign “
The only things that tastes like Coca Cola is
Coca Cola Itself. It’s the real thing.” It has used
the real thing slogan over the years to claim
its authenticity.
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14. 7. The law of Quality
• Quality is important, but brands are not built
by quality alone
• In fact, most people have no idea as to the
"real" quality of a product or service.
• Is a Rolex really better at keeping time than a
Timex? How do you know?
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15. • Rolex has become the world’s best known and best
selling brand of luxury watches. Does quality have
anything to do with its success? Probably not. Does
Rolex make high quality watches? Probably. Does it
matter? Probably Not.
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16. 8. The law of the Category
• A leading brand should promote the product
or service category, not the brand.
• This may seen counter-intuitive, but the
best way for the brand leader to build sales
is to promote the category, not their specific
brand.
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17. • Eatzi’s is the first brand in the new category it
calls the meal market. Jointly owned by
Brinker international and Phil Romano, Eatzi’s
focuses on restaurant quality food primarily
for take out consumption.
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18. 9. The law of the Name
• In the long run, a brand is nothing more than a
name
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19. • One of the world’ most powerful brands, Xerox
demonstrates many of the important laws of
branding, including being the first in its category with
a short unique name , so much to become generic
for copying. How ever when it put its name to
computers the result was huge losses
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20. 10. The law of Extensions
• The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its
name on everything
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21. • With a powerful marketing program, Miller
high Life was rapidly gaining on market
leader Budweiser. ( It got within 20% of King
of Beers) Then it introduced a bevy of line
extensions and stopped Miller High Life cold.
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22. 11. The law of Fellowship
• In order to build the category, a brand should
welcome other brands
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23. • One of the best locations for a number two brand
is across the street from the leader. The best place
for a Planet Hollywood is right across the street
from its biggest competitor, Hard Rock Café. Both
brands will benefit.
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24. 12. The law of the Generic
• One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a
generic name
• Generic names (i.e. names describing the product or
service category, such as "Wine Coolerz"), do not
strongly position the product or service within the
category, and are thus liable to confuse potential
customers.
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25. • Blockbuster Video is a good brand name for a
video rental store while General Video Rental
is not. Brands should Avoid generic names
like the plague. Yet you see a large number of
such generic names especially in the retail
area.
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26. 13. The law of the Company
• Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There
is a difference.
• Brand names should always take precedence over
company names. Consumers buy brands, they don't
buy companies. So when a company name is used
alone as a brand name like GE, Xerox, Intel
customers see these names as brands.
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27. • Does Tide need the corporate endorsement of
company name Procter & Gamble? Probably Not.
Will the endorsement hurt the brand? Probably
not. But Corporate endorsements are for the
trade , not for customer’s enlightenment.
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28. 14. The law of Sub brands
• What branding builds, sub branding (i.e.
brand extensions) can destroy.
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29. • Holiday Inn has become a mega brand with
the launch of sub brands like Holiday Inn
Express, Holiday Inn Select, Holiday Inn
Garden Court etc. This sub branding is
eroding the power of core brand.
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30. 15. The law of Siblings
• There is a time and a place to launch a
second brand.
• The key to a family approach is to make
each sibling a unique individual brand with
its own identity.
• Resist the urge to give the brands a family
look or identity. You want to make each
brand a different and distinct as possible.
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31. • When Honda wanted to introduce an expensive car,
it didn’t call the brand Honda Plus or Honda Ultra. It
developed a new brand called Acura which became a
huge success. As a matter of fact , it became the
largest selling imported luxury car in US.
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32. 16. The law of Shape
• A brand's logotype should be designed to fit
both the eye.
• The ideal shape for a logotype or brand
symbol is two and a quarter units wide and
one unit high.
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33. • A customer sees the world through 2
eyes peering out of his head like looking
out windshield of an automobile. For
Maximum Visual Impact a logotype
should be same shape as a windshield.
Avis is almost perfect while Arby’s is too
vertical.
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34. 17. The law of Color
• A brand should use a color that is the opposite
of its major competitor's.
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35. • What color is a Tiffany’s box . It’s a distinctive
Robin’s egg blue. All tiffany boxes are blue. If
Tiffany had used a variety of colors for its
boxes ,it would have lost a marvelous
opportunity for brand name reinforcement
with a distinctive color.
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36. 18. The law of Borders
• There are no barriers to global branding. A
brand should know no borders.
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37. • Heineken exports it beer to some 170
different countries. In most of these
countries, it is the largest selling high priced
beer. It locally brews its beer in 50 countries.
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38. 19. The law of Consistency
• A brand is not built overnight. Success is
measured in decades, not years
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39. • BMW has been ultimate driving machine for 25
years. What's more remarkable is the fact that it
retained its strategy even while changing 3
advertising agencies. Change of agencies usually
signals end of a brand’s consistency.
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40. 20. The law of Change
• Brands can be changed, but only infrequently
and very carefully.
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41. • Citibank changed from a corporate bank to a
consumer bank with plans of becoming the first
global consumer bank. It took a while but was done.
But a merger with Travelers Group threatened the
entire branding process.
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42. 21. The law of Mortality
• No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often
the best solution.
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43. • Film Photography is slowly being replaced by
digital photography. But Kodak refuses to face
that reality. Instead it is trying to save its
brand by using Kodak name on its Digital
products.
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44. 22. The law of Singularity
• The most important aspect of a brand is its
single-mindedness.
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45. • Volvo has been selling safety for over 35 years. In
the process it has become the largest selling
European luxury car. In the past decade, it has sold
849,348 cars in the US, outselling BMW and
Mercedes Benz.
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46. Thank You
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