Chapter 12 – The Law of Line Extension
The law: There’s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of a brand.
Ries and Trout state The Law of Line Extension, or spinning off new products using the same brand name altered slightly, is the most commonly broken immutable law of marketing. They give the example of A1 steak sauce. When more customers started to eat chicken, the company decided to come up with a sauce that would taste well on chicken. They still used the A1 name believing that customers would recognize the brand. However, the chicken sauce failed because the “A-1” name had become used interchangeably with the steak sauce.
Related quotes:
- One day a company is tightly focused on a single product that is highly profitable. The next day the same company is spread thin over many products and is losing money.
- When you try to be all things to all people, you inevitably wind up in trouble.
Chapter 13 – The Law of Sacrifice
The law: You have to give up something in order to get something.
According to the authors, companies must give up product line, target market, and constant change to be successful. When Eveready had been the leader in the battery market it just extended its product lines in conjunction with technological changes (the “Eveready heavy-duty battery” and then the “Eveready alkaline battery”). Duracell then came out selling alkaline batteries only. The “long-lasting battery” forced Eveready’s Energizer name change but it was too little too late. Duracell’s singular focus prevailed.
In terms of target market sacrifice, Ries and Trout point to Marlboro. After reaching men, cigarette companies began expanding their advertising to women. Meanwhile, Marlboro shrunk its target market to the “cowboy.” As of the time of the writing, Marlboro was the world’s largest selling cigarette.
Lastly, the authors mention White Castle as an example of sacrificing constant change. The company’s “frozen sliders” are still sold at “unbelievably low prices” and even the restaurants’ physical structures have hardly changed.
A couple of related quotes:
- If you want to be successful, you have to reduce your product line, not expand it.
- There seems to be an almost religious belief that the wider net catches more customers, in spite of many examples to the contrary.
Chapter 14 – The Law of Attributes
The law: For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.
Ries and Trout advise picking an opposite attribute, not a similar one when choosing how to market a product. The Coke and Pepsi war is an example of The Law of Attributes. Coke was the established brand and so it had the older crowd. Pepsi successfully marketed itself to the younger (the opposite) generation.
Quotes from the chapter:
- Marketing is a battle of ideas. So if you are to succeed, you must have an idea or attribute of your own to focus your efforts around. Without one, you had better have a low price. A very low price.
- Some say all attributes are not created equal. Some attributes are more important to customers than others. You must try and own the most important attribute.
Andrew T. Daniel 