Advertising Age - Al Ries

Why Two Names Are Better Than One

A nickname is a good thing. People who use a brand's nickname feel closer to the product than those who don't. As a matter of fact, nicknames are one of the most under-utilized aspects of marketing. If at all possible, every company and every brand should have a formal name as well as a nickname. Two names are better than one.

Comcast Needs a New Strategy, Not a New Brand

What's Comcast doing playing in this game? That's a classic marketing mistake. Comcast is trying to fight a branding war with its heavily-hyped Xfinity brand when it should have been fighting a category war.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup Offers Bittersweet Lesson

High-fructose corn syrup is getting a bad name. But the broader lesson is the importance of the category name itself. Too many marketing people take the category name as a "given." All of their efforts are spent on promoting the brand, not the category name. Yet over time, the category name can be an extremely important element in the success of a brand.

Once Brand Takes Flight, It's Hard to Bring It Down

Once a brand has a strong position in consumers' minds, it is almost impervious to flak. There are a host of examples that demonstrate the power of a strong brand to withstand negative publicity.

Fill in the Holes in the Consumer's Mind

Dell, IBM and Xerox are just a few of the many well-known brands with no places in the mind to put them.

'Modelitus' Is the Primary Cause of Toyota's Troubles

The Toyota Production System is world famous for its focus on "continuous improvements." With all those improvements continuously taking place, why has Toyota suddenly found itself in deep trouble? You might have your own theory, but here is mine: "Modelitus."

What Good Are the Words to a Song Without the Music?

Without a visual hammer, an advertising campaign is almost certain to fail.

The Principles of Marketing Can Be Summarized in One Word

What's the No. 1 principle of marketing, at least as far as we're concerned? It's the principle of focus. You narrow the focus in order to own a word in the mind of the consumer. Without a focus, it's very difficult to build a strong brand. And without a strong brand, any company's future is in doubt.

If You Don't Think Names Matter, Yours May Be Forgotten
Names are important. Too many marketing campaigns start off with high hopes and an impossible name.

The TGIF 'Revolution' Is Nothing Without a Marketing Strategy

Will the skillful use of TGIF -- Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook -- make you a good marketing manager? I think not. TGIF is only half the story.

Upgraded Extensions May Make 'Basic' Version Look Worse

A recent trend in marketing is the downgrading of established brands by upgraded line extensions. Though years of hyperbole have wiped out the meaning of many of the words used in brand names and advertising, there are a number of examples of line extensions that could seriously damage the core brands.

Slowly But Surely, Line Extensions Will Take Your Brand Off Course

Marketing is like steering a ship. If you don't wait long enough for a marketing effect to run its course, you can draw exactly the wrong conclusion.

GM's Appointment of Lutz Shows No Respect for Marketing

General Motors' new advertising and marketing czar is Bob Lutz, who until April of this year headed global product development. According to CEO Fritz Henderson: "Bob's responsibilities beyond creative design will include brands, marketing, advertising and communications." Has respect for marketing fallen so low that the most difficult job in the profession (getting GM out of the ditch) can be given to someone with so little experience in marketing?

Advertising Could Do With More of Bernbach's Genius

"Nobody's Perfect" is the title of Doris Willens' new book on Bill Bernbach and the golden age of advertising. And just to make sure you get the point of the title, the book explores every imperfection she could find in the career of perhaps the most famous person in the history of advertising. Fair enough. Nobody's perfect. But I think she failed to stress the essence of Bernbach's genius which, in my opinion, was his incredible ability to recognize a good idea.

Variable Pricing Is Ultimate Brand-Destruction Machine

Why do otherwise intelligent people borrow concepts from failing industries and think they will succeed in a different setting?

Metric Madness: The Answer to Mathematical Failure Seems to Be More Math

March Madness lasts only three weeks, but Metric Madness goes on all year long. What is Metric Madness? It's the notion you can run anything by the numbers, and it's become the hottest concept in business today. The marketing community eats this stuff up. Nobody generates more data than they do. Hallelujah!

Don't Damage Your Brand for Short-Term Gains in a Recession

Marketing is a long-term proposition. A company can get in trouble if it changes its marketing strategy to cope with a short-term problem.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

"Love" has become a key ingredient in many marketing programs, and as a matter of fact, falling in love is a good analogy for the branding process.

Are You a Left Brainer or a Right Brainer?

To sell a marketing concept to management, marketing people should keep this principle in mind: Left-brain management will never understand right-brain marketing.

The Difference Between Building a Business and Building a Brand

Are you building a business? Or are you building a brand? Silly questions, you might be thinking. Naturally, you are trying to do both. But that might be a mistake.

If GM Has a Brand, It's General Misery

In 2007, the U.S. automobile industry spent $4.6 billion on advertising. That's 3.3% of total U.S advertising spending and 5.9% of total U.S. network TV spending. For all that money, you might think the U.S. automobile industry would have done a lot of brand building. I wonder.

What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign

Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history of marketing. With its reliance on consistency and simplicity in messaging, the Obama campaign has a lot to teach the advertising community.

Take a Holistic Approach to Your Messaging

Holism is the concept that the whole has a reality independent and greater than the sum of its parts. Marketing people should pay more attention to this concept.

Boost Your PR by Doing Something, Not Just Saying Something

Every country, every state, every city, every company should consider the long-term potential of sponsoring events that generate PR. They need not be particularly expensive, either. Since 1933, Rockefeller Center in New York has sponsored its annual Christmas tree lighting, which always generates a raft of favorable stories. In 1964, the tree-lighting ceremony became an annual TV special.

The Pitfalls of Megabranding

The rampant proliferation of flavor variations has a downside. Consumers are getting confused. A number of research studies have shown that the more choices a consumer has, the more likely that consumer will be unhappy with the choice he or she does make. (The only people who are getting excited about the proliferation of product flavors and variations are the vice presidents in charge of slotting fees.)

The Visual Hammer and the Verbal Nail

What's more important, the visual or the verbal? Neither. It's like asking what's more important in building a house, a hammer or a nail? Both have to work together. The best hammer in the world is useless if the hammer misses the nail. And the best nail in the world is useless unless there's a hammer to hammer the nail in.

Ries' Pieces of Slogan Savvy

Have you seen the advertising campaign for "the new Chrysler"? Slogan: "If you can dream it, we can build it." Sounds like an ad for a California custom shop. But more important, is the slogan memorable? In this day and age, it doesn't matter how well-crafted the words are; if the slogan isn't memorable, it's just a waste of space.

Mobilenet Promises to Be the Next Big Medium

If mobile devices integrate three technologies in an attractive and convenient package -- GPS, scanning and voice recognition -- the result will be the birth of a new medium as revolutionary as television or radio.

Sometimes Saying 'No' Is Your Strongest Asset

In Al Ries' opinion, too many advertising agencies are concerned with fixing the advertising when their first concern should be fixing the problem. All the advertising in the world wouldn't have saved Isuzu, he says. Why? First and foremost, Isuzu is a terrible name. And its agency should have said something.

Innovation Should Be Seen as a Tactic, Not a Business Strategy

Innovation is not a strategy, and companies that depend on a constant flow of new, innovative products will someday find themselves in deep trouble, as Sharper Image has. Every successful company needs a branding strategy, which may or may not include innovation. Yet many marketing gurus have elevated "innovation" to a point where it is widely perceived as the single-most-important function of a corporation.