Advertising Age - Al Ries

The TGIF 'Revolution' Is Nothing Without a Marketing Strategy

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:00:10 -0500

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

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:05:51 -0400

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

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:53:15 -0400

"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

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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

Mon, 04 May 2009 11:00:30 -0400

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

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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?

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:52:50 -0500

"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?

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:55:39 -0500

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

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:35:00 -0500

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

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:38:35 -0500

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

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:00:00 -0500

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

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:19:02 -0400

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

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:09:57 -0400

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

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:47:49 -0400

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

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:38:13 -0400

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

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:19:46 -0400

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

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:01:15 -0400

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

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

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

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:52:13 -0500

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.

Why You Can (and Can't) Learn From Obama

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination once again demonstrates the power of one of the most fundamental concepts in marketing: owning a word in the mind.

The Power of Flanking

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:05:05 -0500

The language of marketing has been borrowed from the military. We talk about defensive marketing, offensive marketing, guerrilla marketing. Often overlooked, however, is "flanking," one of the most powerful military strategies.

Category Creators vs. Category Killers

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:13:38 -0500

It can cost a fortune for a company to pioneer a new category of product or service. Digital cameras, for example. Or satellite radio. Or internet grocery service. Since it's so costly to establish a new category, why would any company deliberately want to kill an emerging new category? Actually there are good reasons for putting the kibosh on a new category. In the marketing jungle, there are two kinds of companies: category builders and category killers.

The Long Tail vs. the Re-tail

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

There's no question the packaged goods industry has fallen in love with the Long Tail. It's "shelf warfare" in the strip malls of America. Each additional SKU of a leading brand has the potential of pushing a competitive brand off the shelf. In many companies, the battle has become one of increasing shelf space, not increasing sales. Two facings are always better than one.

Think Category First, Brand Second

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:00:13 -0400

A brand is the tip of an iceberg. How big and how deep the iceberg is will determine how powerful the brand is. The iceberg is the category. If it melts, the brand will melt too.

Companies Must Lift the Velvet Curtain

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

From the General Electric Co. in New York to the Walt Disney Co. in Los Angeles, a velvet curtain has descended across the country separating marketing from management. Very few companies get in trouble because of marketing mistakes. They get in trouble because of management mistakes that management usually blames on marketing.

'Multi' Is the Most Dangerous Word in the Dictionary

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:45:34 -0400

Every time a new medium arrives, older media players think, "What an opportunity to extend our franchise." So magazines and newspapers and radio and TV outlets are jumping all over themselves to digitize their brands.

Why the iPhone Will Fail

aries@adage.com(Al Ries) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Prediction No. 1: The iPhone will be a major disappointment. The hype has been enormous. Apple says its iPhone is "literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone." A stock-market analyst says, "The iPhone has the potential to be even bigger than the iPod." I think not. An iPod is a divergence device; an iPhone is a convergence device. There's a big difference between the two.

The Dubious Practice of Double Branding

al@ries.com(Al Ries) — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:09:27 -0400

Branding is so popular in boardrooms today that some companies are overdoing it. "If one brand is good," goes the thinking, "then two must be better." Take the example of Taster's Choice, which made its name longer in 2003.