Al Ries Quotes

#1. The real barrier (to building a brand) is the human mind. It normally takes decades to build a brand because it takes decades to penetrate the gray matter in between your ears.

Al Ries

#2. 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.

Al Ries

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

Al Ries

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

Al Ries

#5. 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.

Al Ries

#6. THE LAW OF THE CONTRACTION: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.

Al Ries

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

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

Al Ries

#9. What's your brand? If you can't answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand's in trouble.

Al Ries

#10. 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.

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

Al Ries

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

Al Ries

#13. 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.

Al Ries

#14. The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product.

Al Ries

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

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

Al Ries

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

Al Ries

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

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#19. 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

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#20. 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.

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#21. The essence of positioning is sacrifice. You must be willing to give up something in order to establish that unique position.

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#22. War and marketing have many similarities.

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

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#24. 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.

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#25. 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.

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#26. 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.

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

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#28. 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.

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#29. The primary objective of a branding program is never the market for the product or service. The primary objective of a branding program is always the mind of the prospect. The mind comes first; the market follows where the mind leads.

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

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#31. What should a brand leader advertise?Brand leadership, of course. Leadership is the single most important motivating factor in consumer behavior.

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#32. The Internet is the ultimate in brand-centered buying.

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#33. THE LAW OF THE GENERIC: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.

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#34. companies are focused on building products rather than brands. A product is something made in a factory. A brand is something made in the mind. To be successful today, you have to build brands, not products. And you build brands by using positioning strategies, starting with a good name. Any

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#35. Mind-changing is the road to advertising disaster.

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#36. Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products.

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

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#38. Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.

Al Ries

#39. 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.

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#40. 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.

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#41. 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.

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#42. 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.

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

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#44. 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.

Al Ries