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by
Marsha Friedman
EMSI
 For
those of you who might not have read part one and may not be
totally familiar with Al Ries, Al is an international marketing
expert and author of 12 books on marketing, advertising and PR (The
22-Immutable Laws of Marketing, Positioning, The 22-Immutable
Laws of Branding, Marketing Warfare, The Fall of Advertising &
The Rise of PR, War in the Boardroom, among others). He’s
also a renowned public speaker and consultant to many of the
mega brands and corporations.
If you wish to read part one, it's here:
Al Ries Interview - Part 1
Continued
Marsha Friedman: Every business person
obviously wants to have success. Their long term goals are to be
very profitable and growing. However, when the doors need to
stay open now, it’s hard to worry about 2 to 5 years from now.
What are some of the things one needs to be aware of so that
good decisions are made that will support all of their goals?
Al Ries: Short term
needs and long term goals can sometimes conflict, and the most
important advice I can give in this situation is don’t forget
your focus. When it comes to focus, one needs to narrow it, not
widen it. My company, Ries & Ries, works with clients all the
time looking for ways to narrow their focus and get them out of
offering too much stuff. However, many businesses aren’t keen
on the idea, because when one narrows their focus they have to
drop some product. So what happens in the short term? When you
drop a product or service, you’re going to lose some business
initially. Who wants to do that? To the average business owner,
the thought is “Wait a second, we can’t do that!”
I’ll give you an example. My company
was doing some consulting for Burger King. Now, Burger King has
twelve hamburgers on their menu. We said to them, “That’s too
confusing. Let’s reduce it.” Their reply was, “Oh! We can’t
do that.” You see, they know the percentage of sales each one
of those 12 products brings in, right? So they think, “If we
make it five products, it means we’re going to lose 3.7% of the
business.” They look at the numbers and what will happen in the
short term, but they don’t look at the long term implication.
The implication is when you simplify your product line, you make
it easier for consumers to know what you’re selling and you’ll
sell more, but not necessarily in the short term.
So “focus” is a long-term concept that
can eliminate the short term issues, but you need to start for
it to work.
The result of focus is the more you
focus the stronger your brand becomes, because you can stand for
something. For example, what’s a Chevrolet? I know what a
Chevrolet is: it’s a large or small, cheap or expensive, car or
truck. If somebody says to you, “I bought a Chevrolet,” not
much was said. Did he or she buy a ZR1 for $105,000 or a
sub-compact for $13,000? There’s a big difference there. So to
say, “I bought a Chevrolet” is saying nothing, because the brand
doesn’t stand for anything!
Many, many, many brands today do not
stand for anything, because they’re into everything. If you’re
into everything, the brand can’t possibly stand for a single
thing. Yet what’s the trend in business today? Expand the
brand. Why? Because it makes sense! “Well, we want to grow,”
they say. “So if you expand the product lineup, you’re going to
grow.” That’s logical. But it doesn’t work and that’s the most
important thing about marketing. Every single principle of
marketing is not necessarily logical and it makes it a very
difficult discipline to learn, because almost everything you
should be doing doesn’t necessarily make sense, if you look at
it from the obvious point of view.
Marsha Friedman: I
agree. In the focus section of your book, you also talk about
the importance of focusing on one word, phrase or benefit.
Al Ries: Yes and
that is where it becomes more important in the long term. Look
at brands that have become very, very successful. Invariably
they stand for something. Rolex stands for “expensive watch.”
My company used to do some telephone interviews and we’d say,
“Okay, we’re going to say a brand name and you tell us the first
word that comes to your mind.” The highest score ever was Rolex
and the word was “expensive.” From a management standpoint you
might think that’s not a good word. Let me tell you, that’s a
POWERFUL word! That’s what makes the Rolex brand. People buy a
Rolex BECAUSE it’s expensive.
Marsha Friedman:
You’re correct, it’s a status symbol.
Al Ries: That’s why
they don’t buy a Rolex in spite of being expensive, they buy it
to show off their success. If Rolex were to sell $1,000
watches, after a while, the brand would be destroyed because
it’s not what the brand stands for. It stands for expensive
watch in the same sense that Starbucks stands for expensive
coffee.
Before Starbucks, if you asked
somebody, “What’s a brand name of expensive coffee?” They
wouldn’t know. That’s opportunity and yet if you’d have told
somebody years ago, “Hey, let’s launch a chain of expensive
coffee.” People would ask, “Why would you want to do that?” I
mean, who wants to spend more money on coffee? Nobody!
Marsha Friedman: Let
me ask you this, Al, and I preface my question by saying I
totally agree with the focus concept. But what would you say
about companies like, Home Depot? Home Depot’s focus is “Home
Improvement,” but they have thousands of brands and products. So
how does that work?
Al Ries: Well, to
make my point, let’s take Wal-Mart for example. Wal-Mart has
more than 150,000 products. But you see, once again, the
Wal-Mart brand is built on one word. What is the word? It’s
the word, “cheap.” If people want something cheap, they go to
Wal-Mart. Now that doesn’t appeal to everybody, does it? No.
But “cheap” is a very, very powerful brand provided you’re
perceived as the cheapest. K-Mart went bankrupt. Why? Because
they tried to emulate Wal-Mart’s strategy, but the consumer saw
Wal-Mart as the first cheap store and therefore they own the
word “cheap.” Now Target was smart. They said, “Hey, we can’t
own ‘cheap’ because Wal-Mart owns it, so we’ll go a little
upscale.” There’s a cliché about Target; they’re called Targét
(pronounced TAR-ZHAY). Oprah Winfrey said Target was Cheap
Chic. It’s a little better design and Target has done well;
K-Mart has not.
The same goes for Home Depot. Home
Depot was the first home improvement store. Whatever that
meant, but to the average person it meant that if you have a
project to do, you could go to Home Depot and get everything you
need to complete the project (lumber, faucets, nails… you name
it). Home Depot is a little like Wal-Mart. They not only sell
you the whole package, but they sell it at a very good price. So
in a sense, Home Depot is the Wal-Mart for men. For doing
projects on Saturdays you go to Home Depot.
Marsha Friedman: So
then, if a company says, “Okay, we’ve got a brilliant idea and
we know that this is a money-maker. We want to release it.”
How would you suggest they release it if you’re saying stay
focused on what you have, don’t widen your focus, don’t lose
your focus and don’t water down your brand? How would they do
it?
Al Ries: Let’s look
at Crest. Crest, the first cavity fighting toothpaste on the
market. What is Crest today? Well it’s a mouthwash, white
strips, electronic toothbrushes, etc; it’s all sorts of stuff.
In my opinion, I don’t think that works as well as if they had
separate brands for each of these categories. A separate brand
for mouthwash, a separate brand for white strips (the teeth
whitening stuff) and so forth. But the tendency on the part of
many companies, and it’s because it makes sense to them from an
economic standpoint, they think, “If we have one brand name and
all these products are under one brand name umbrella, we’ll save
money on advertising.” It is better to start a new brand and not
mess with the established one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End of Part
2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marsha Friedman, CEO of EMSI, is a 20-year
veteran of the public relations industry, who provides PR
strategy and publicity services to corporations, entertainers,
authors and professional firms.
She is also the author of the book, Celebritize Yourself.
marsha@marshafriedman.com
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