05.05
I know it’s unfair for me to pick on a book based on a one-paragraph summary, but I was perusing the Ries & Ries site and noticed these sentences describing Al Ries’s Focus.
How do you build a brand? You narrow the focus. Nokia narrowed its focus to cellphones and became the world’s No. 1 cellphone brand. Federal Express narrowed its focus to overnight deliveries and became one of the world’s leading cargo carriers. Southwest narrowed its focus to coach service only and became America’s most profitable airline. Dell narrowed its focus to direct sales only and became the world’s leading PC manufacturer.
Let’s examine the examples of “focus” Ries provides here:
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07.06
A few months back I almost wrote a post about what a terrible idea Bud Light Lime was. Now it seems to be doing well, but I’m resisting the temptation to pretend I thought it was a great idea all along. Too many of us in branding succumb to this temptation—the desire to claim we could have predicted things after they’ve already happened. Brand fails? Must’ve been a terrible name and package design. Brand takes off? Great logo! Great name!
(By the way, if you have frustrating/funny examples of this behavior in action, I’d love to hear about it.)
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04.24
Name the one thing that your company does. Think carefully before responding, because you’ll never be able to do anything else under the same brand name.
I think that’s a little extreme, but I was surprised to learn how passionately some people believe it to be true. About a week ago I wrote a short piece in response to Laura Ries’s post about UPS. In her post, Laura invokes a classic Ries line: “once your brand stands for something in the mind, it is impossible to change the brand’s position.” She goes on to use UPS (shipping), Kodak (film), and Blockbuster (video rental stores) as examples of brands that stand for just “one thing,” and therefore failed (or will fail, in the case of UPS) to be perceived as doing anything else well under that brand name. Follow her logic, and it’s why Kodak isn’t a leader in digital photography and Blockbuster’s Netflix-like service never took off.
I disagree.
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03.11
Have you always wanted to create a top-notch brand identity—complete with name, logo, and tagline—but don’t have a clue how to get started? You could hire someone, but the best branding agencies will charge you thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Finally, there is a solution. With my proprietary (patent pending) 10-step RandoBrand™ process, you can build your brand entirely for free! Interested? Of course you are. Let’s get started.
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