Al Ries Quotes

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.

The single most wasteful thing you can do in marketing is try to change a mind.

The mind, as a defense against the volume of today's communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.

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.

Advertising is the way great brands get to be great brands.

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.

A perception that exists in the mind is often interpreted as a universal truth.

Marketing is not selling. Marketing is building a brand in the mind of the prospect.

Traditional marketing is not focused on creating new categories. Traditional marketing is focused on creating new customers. Traditional marketing involves finding out what consumers want and then giving them what they want, better and cheaper than the competition.

Only brand names register in the mind ... What you should generally do is take a regular word and use it out of context to connote the primary attribute of your brand.

The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.

When a really new product comes along, it's almost always a mistake to hang a well-known name on it. The reason is obvious. A well-known name got well-known because it stood for something. It occupies a position in the prospect's mind. A really well-known name sits on the top rung of a sharply defined ladder. The new product, if it's going to be successful, is going to require a new name. New ladder, new name. It's as simple as that.

Marketing is what a company is in business to do. Marketing is a company's ultimate objective.

It normally takes decades to build a brand ... It's the forgetting of the old truth that allows a person to accept a new truth. You need to allow enough time for this forgetting to take place

You want to change something in a computer? Just type over or delete the existing material. You want to change something in a mind? Forget it.

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.

War and marketing have many similarities.

Customers want brands that are narrow in scope and distinguishable by a single word, the shorter the better.

It's better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.

The Internet is the ultimate in brand-centered buying.

Don't play semantic games with the prospect. Advertising is not a debate. It's a seduction.

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.

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.

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.

Mind-changing is the road to advertising disaster.

The only reality you can be sure about is in your own perceptions. If the universe exists, it exists inside your own mind and the minds of others.

Strategy and timing are the Himalayas of marketing. Everything else is the Catskills.

When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not 'How is this new product better than the competition?' but 'First what?' In other words, what category is this new product first in?

Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.

The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospects mind.

Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world's first overcommunicated society. Each year we send more and receive less.

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

It's the first company to build the mental position that has the upper hand, not the first company to make the product. IBM didn't invent the computer; Sperry Rand did. But IBM was the first to build the computer position in the prospect's mind.

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.

The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.