Transcript

Bennie F Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for another episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into the conversations with individuals that flourish at this intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through thought provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, we have a really special guest, none other than Laura Ries. Laura is a globally recognized marketing strategist and bestselling author. Since 2022, she’s continued her father’s legacy as chairwoman of Ries, guiding the expansion and global influence of the firm where she has helped Fortune 500s and ambitious startups win through bold, focused brand positioning over the last 30 years. She’s a much sought after speaker. We’re really honored to have her join us on the podcast. It’s a trusted advisor and author of the recently released The Strategic Enemy. Her new book that helps brands of any size build a position and business worth fighting for. Laura, welcome.

Laura Ries 

Great to be here. Thanks so much.

Bennie 

Goodness. So I am excited that we have you. I think the book hasn’t even been out for a week as of this recording. So you know, the fact that you chose to hang out with us for a little while is really powerful. So we’re gonna jump right in. The Strategic Enemy. Yes. So what brings us to this provocative title and the work that you’re doing at this moment?

Laura 

Well, I mean, as you know, my legacy is about positioning and positioning is about owning an idea in the mind of the consumer. Yet what we found was the best way to make that positioning clear was to contrast it with an enemy. An enemy is an oppositional force that your brand or your category stands against. Now, it could be a competitor, but it could also be another category, a convention, a concept.

Bennie 

Okay.

Laura

It just has to be something you’re not, something you’re willing to say no to and stand against.

Bennie 

Right. It’s kind of powerful. You know, I think back to music analogies and spoken, I’m stuck with Miles Davis quote with the notes you don’t play are just as important as the ones you do.

Laura

Absolutely. So much, and listen, I love to be here. The American Marketing Association, these are my peeps, right? And we’re all in this together to build strong brands. Yet too often companies, first of all, they’re entirely focused on themselves and trying to communicate that they’re better than everyone. But really the exciting thing is to be able to contrast with the strategic enemy how you’re different, making that you know, simple distinction and clarity that helps people choose your brand over others. There’s always a choice and it’s not about the enemy being wrong. It’s about the enemy being different. And, you know, there’s multiple, you know, strokes for different folks, right?

Bennie 

You know, I think it’s really interesting that you talk about this as creating brands, businesses, and ideas that are worth fighting for. We all get up and do the work that we do for a reason, right? Because we care, we care deeply. And I think it’s interesting from your point, so many times in companies we’ll see organizations and teams that are playing not to lose, which is very different than playing to win.

Laura 

Yes. That’s true. And it comes from, very important, I’ve already mentioned it, saying no to something. That does set up what you’re, what line are you willing to put down in the sand? And what are you willing to get up and say, we are against that? And most companies are afraid to do that, right? And they want to play it safe, yet the biggest successors are those that are bold enough to stand against something. I mean, you look at the huge success of Liquid Death.

Bennie

Right.

Laura 

And yeah, it was the packaging and the craziness. It was canned water that stood against plastic bottles killing our environment. That was a very strong enemy to rally for, right? To save and to say I’m against plastic bottles. even, it can be the previous category, so you see the success of Dude Wipes, right? So they’re pioneers of these wet, moist toilet papers with a great branding, but going up against saying, dry toilet paper just doesn’t cut it. What’s interesting is, you know, the traditional companies came up with the product, right? It was Charmin and Cottonelle had this on the market for years, but they could never strongly position for it because that would go against their own brand, right? There were line extensions. And that’s the real danger. That’s the real strategic enemy of good positioning these days is having the line extension name on one name on multiple categories that dilutes and diminishes your power and strength and focus and ability to have that strategic enemy.

Bennie

Let’s talk a bit about how strategies evolve over years, because there was a time when the strategy was the brand extension. Like, put my logo and colors on anything else that’s loosely or sometimes not even adjacent connected to the work as a strategy versus today, like honing in on that real authentic space that you can build a product on. Because you could say, the product was invented. It existed. But no one bought it.

Laura 

Because no one was able to really leverage and position and sell it to us to get us excited about because I mean the name itself even dude wipes I mean that that’s a strong powerful name and listen it’s just as appealing to women as it is to men I tell you because you know you do a number two you need a strong thing to clean it up but it is true that you know line extension was you know a big thing

Bennie

Right, right.

Laura

You had GE was the GE name was on everything. The IBM name was on everything. And you go back to Sony. Sony put its brand name on everything. In fact, most of the Japanese companies did. But the issue is competition. In a world with massive competing against, you know, focused brands with strong positioning, strong ideas becomes even more difficult to face them.

Bennie 

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Laura 

Back before we had the internet, if you had distribution power, perhaps you could be safe, right? You could control the shelf. But these days with a phone and all the distribution outlets, it’s just not possible. And you’re likely to face someone with a better strategy and your weekend line extension strategy is going to be very vulnerable. And even Coca-Cola, mean, they’ve looked at things like, remember the brand Coca-Cola Life?

And they had Coca-Cola Energy and Coca-Cola coffee brands? Forget it. I mean, they were trying to jump into new categories with a line extension instead of what should companies do? They should launch new brands and new categories. Because listen, the category is more important than the brand. People think, you know, it’s the Red Bull brand that’s so important. No, it’s not.

Bennie 

Right.

Laura 

It’s the category they invented, the energy drink. And that name is how we verbalize the category. And that is, you know, so you might think. And so you can’t fall in too much in love with your own brand. You have to see that, you know, it is the category dominating the category is a powerful place. And if you see a new category, it’s best to approach that with a new brand that can stand for that new category and perhaps even be, you know, your own enemy. I mean,

Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a great example. That brand was a rising star of the early 2000s. An alternative to beer was sweet and delicious, right? But then people realized how much sugar was in those suckers. I mean, it was almost as much as a Coke, and it had a ton of calories and carbs and everything else. And what do you do at that point where new categories are taking off? And they did something very smart. They launched a new brand and a new category called Hard Seltzer and they called it White Claw. And today, that’s a billion dollar business, the strongest brand in their portfolio.

Bennie 

Right, it’s so true. I remember once being on a tour at Starbucks headquarters and everything is branded Starbucks. You come in, it fills the experience, the conversation, and the tour was all about the main Starbucks brand. And that gives a little bit of the story, the main Starbucks brand. And I remember turning in a corner and then there was this brightly lit space that was completely different in space, and it was Seattle’s best. And I remember a brand leader looking at me and said, Seattle’s best competes in places where Starbucks can’t and shouldn’t. It was right, exactly. And it was this great juxtaposition that it was all about this category in space, but they had unique voices, unique relationships, and unique offerings that really reinforced the brands.

Laura 

And won, smartly. It’s a brilliant strategy. Instead of doing Starbucks cheap, they did Seattle’s best and in a sense competed with themselves, but they’re very clearly differentiated. And someone was going to fill that space with a brand. It might as well be you. And that allows you to keep Starbucks at the premium and puts then Seattle’s best in the other places you don’t want your brand.

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Laura 

A very strong strategy that too many companies miss. And yet, there are so many great examples like the one you just mentioned. But think back to what Toyota did with Lexus, right? I mean, and the same thing happened with Hyundai, right? And the Genesis. Initially, they tried to put the Hyundai name on the Genesis car. Forget about it. Who’s going to pay twice as much and have it still say Hyundai? Uh-uh.

I wanted to say Genesis, a new brand positioned at the high end of the category. Yet time and again, think at big companies, it’s so hard not to use our name on everything. They feel very loyal to the company. It’s a little like Adele Carnegie said, the person’s name is the sweetest sound that you’ve ever heard. And I think at a company, it’s the same. You feel flattered when you hear it, and you think the brand name is the power. It’s not.

Bennie

Right.

Laura 

That the power lies in that category. And listen, you’ll or die on the category. Kodak, for example. Kodak was absolutely one of the most powerful brands in the world. People thought it stood for quality or trust. No, it didn’t. It stood for film photography. And when that went down, so did the brand.

Bennie

That is so true. Now, I’m curious about this. You talk about in your bio that you’ve helped Fortune 500 companies and ambitious startups. So I’m a big believer that the nouns are important, but the adjectives really matter.

So when we think about it, the framing of startups being ambitious, what’s that tension like between assisting Fortune fives who’ve achieved a level of financial success and gravitas versus startups which by definition are knocking at the door?

Laura

Startups and entrepreneurs are fun because they are willing to be bold and take chances. They see the opportunity and they very strongly usually want to go up against something. David and Goliath, they’re trying to fight to change something. With the big companies, they’re much more risk averse. They don’t like to make too many changes. Sometimes some of the recommendations, very hard for them to swallow. Launching a new brand in a new category, for example. Mean, the company…A big company isn’t always set up to handle that correctly. And it can be very challenging for them. It seems like an easier short-term win perhaps to do the line extension versus the long-term game of launching that new brand. But it is working for me and my career. I’ve worked in so many different companies, different industries around the world, as a matter of fact. Very clear to see how the similarities exist because it’s all about the mind of the consumer.

It’s not whether it’s from a big company or a small company. Consumers don’t care. They don’t really think about that. What does the brand stand for? What are you positioning yourself as? What is that? And what is the other choices I have out there to make? Why should I pick you? mean, that’s what it’s all about.

Bennie 

And in many cases, the smaller the company, the more endeared they are to our space. The sense of, right? The sense of you think about how many large companies spend their marketing efforts to be more in touch, more personal, more intimate, to be smaller, right? To get closer. And then the smaller brands that we see that may be regional plays or community plays, you know, that really attract people in.

Laura

Yeah. Well, and two, having, you know, when you have the founder involved, right? You have the birth story, you have these early employees are really passionate about the cause and the mission and all of these things. And so there’s just a tremendous energy. The founder, you know, CEO is so incredibly important because today you can’t succeed without good marketing.

I mean, of course you need a product, need a service, but you also need the marketing along with it. You need the spokesperson that is going to go out and talk about it and sell it and communicate it in a strong, focused way. And lastly, mean, let’s not, know, the visual opportunity, I call it the visual hammer, a way to visualize your positioning strategy to make it memorable, to make it distinctive is super, super important and adding on, of course.

Pioneering a new category is a way to build a brand but combining it with a visual hammer difference Is the way for long-term success you think about the blue box of Tiffany’s right? I mean what an iconic color box system that just hammers that idea in the mind. But you know if you go back, do you know what they were first in? The first in the raised prong diamond engagement ring before Tiffany’s everything was bezel set. It was you flat.That was safer, right? You don’t want to lose the diamond. But they engineered through, you know, found a way to make it raise, which of course makes it beautiful. But, and that really got a lot of PR, a lot of attention. And then they wisely also packaged it in that blue box, which became just as coveted as the ring itself.

Bennie

Right. We talk about kind of a power and impact of color and making things memorable. So we’re going to go a little bit down memory lane. Think back. What was your first brand client with your dad?

Laura 

Uh-uh. Jeez, it’s been a long time.

Bennie 

Not that long, but I’m interested in how we start. So what was the first brand client that you all worked on together?

Laura 

Yeah, well, you know, so we started in 1994. So I was, went to Northwestern University and I worked then for a year at TBWA advertising. I was on Evian and Willide and it was fun, but I was like, my biggest opportunity to learn from the very best there was, Al Ries. So, you know, we got together and yeah, one of the first clients was Illy Coffee and the guys flew over from Milano and

Bennie

Okay.

Laura

This was an unheard of brand in the US at that time, and actually very small globally as well. It is a family business, they came over. I mean, the suits were, my gosh. So they were very, very well styled as Milano businessmen, you can imagine. they were trying to, how do we position Illy globally as a company? And it was really a very exciting project and we actually did and still stay in touch with them actually to this day such a great company but that you know what did Illy have what did they focus on and they were espresso espresso not coffee because in Italy everyone drinks just the little espressos and so the espresso and they had a very unique idea instead of single source of their beans they perfected this well-balanced they took the beans from everywhere and they made the best blend there was only one Starbucks had a million, all the coffee shops had all sorts of different single this and that, but they had one blend and that was a very powerful idea. Working on them with that and of course their red iconic color was so terrific. We even thought, how about you had red cups for the restaurants? Because it was mainly at the high end restaurants, they were all serving Illy espresso, I should say.

Bennie

Very nice. And so what’s your most recent client?

Laura 

My most recent client, well, yeah, we’re always working. We worked with, and I talk a little bit about in the book, but Southworks. I’ve worked with them several times. And this is a smaller, entrepreneurial type company. They do software development. And their difference in working on what was their strategic enemy. And they were competing with lots of companies, big companies, small companies. But their key difference is…

And their strategic enemy were the companies in India and Eastern Europe. A lot of development over in these areas. Their difference was they were in South America. But they weren’t promoting it, actually. They were trying to look global, as many of us do. You’re a small company, so you want to look like you’re everywhere, doing everything. Uh-uh. Narrow the focus. Well, of course, they had the name Southworks, but they didn’t reinforce the idea. So we gave them a visual of the map of South America. One of the funny comments is after they had used it, not everyone apparently recognizes the map of South America. But that’s their problem. We’re going to have to teach the world how to read a map. Some thought it was Africa. They weren’t quite sure. But it is South America. being in the same time zone, in addition to that, their narrowly focused idea and category idea was development on demand instead of the long-term contracts. You know, none of the hassles, none of the overhead, none of the do-overs, the short-term on-demand contracts to get what you need done right away, right on time with the best developers there are.

Bennie

Now, when you’re working with groups, I’d love for our audience, they’re probably wondering, how do I craft a noble strategic enemy? How do I craft one that’s going to resonate and push us to our best? Like we said, we have some market areas where you know we represent this and they represent that, and it’s really clean and easy. But in our complex world, I think some of the value comes from these unexpected strategic enemies.

How would you counsel folks to craft one that’s noble enough?

Laura 

I don’t know if I would say noble as the word, but it just has to be a clear, potentially even visual difference, right? So it’s got to be instantly accepted. It can’t be something you have to explain in detail in a 50 slide PowerPoint, right? It’s got to be instantly accepted and clear. And so, you know, in thinking about, you know, what are the challenges out there, right? What is, are we going up against the norm or the…

The convention? Are we doing it a different way? What are we up? What are we doing? And who else is out there doing something else? One example I love is the farmer’s dog. So, you know, we’re all treating our pets better and buying them fancier clothes and better food. And so this is, you know, healthier food for dogs. But they just didn’t, you know, talk about why they’re better and talk about the quality of their food. They said, what are we fighting against?

What do you got to stop doing before you’re going to buy our food? And that was dry dog food. And they called it burnt brown balls. That’s a way to reposition your competition, believe me. We stopped buying canned dog food in the store decades ago because I thought the dry food was healthier. But now they’re telling it, it’s overly processed. Highly processed food is not good for you to eat every day. Why are you feeding that to your dog? You’re going to shorten their life.

Bennie 

There you go.

Laura

And that’s where you make that emotional connection and that then they leverage, you know, long live dogs as their slogan. But it connects back to what they stand for, right? The fresh food delivered to your door, but also the, enemy of what you shouldn’t do, feed your dog, process burnt brown balls for every meal.

Bennie

Mm-hmm. So you’ve talked a lot about consumer brands, but you did mention one in B2B space. What do brands that have a more business-to-business focus or a business consideration, what lessons should they take from some of these really powerful consumer stories?

Laura 

Well, I do think is what are you going to say no to is a very important question to ask. And too many times, particularly in business to business, mean, they’re customer focused. We just want to make the customer happy. Whatever the customer wants, we’ll give it to them. Uh-uh. Sometimes the best way is to draw that line in the sand. What are you not going to offer? Right? For Southworks, it was no contracts. Forget it. We’re just going to do it on demand.

But one of the greatest examples of using a strategic enemy was Salesforce, the first CRM in the cloud. Now, initially cloud was small, right? But of course they were the pioneer. They saw the future and they strongly positioned against the enemy, no software, the end of software. They protested Oracle events. They had all sorts of crazy, you know, talk and, know, but it was a powerful position.

To not just talk about you, but what are we fighting against? All the problems of software. Instead of, most companies would try to do both, right? We got software customers now, but we’ll just add a little cloud. The better strategies go all in on the cloud. I mean, that’s what Nvidia’s done with AI. Of course, they were initially the premier, and they still are the premier graphics chip for video games.

But they refocus just on AI. And while they still do the graphics cards, all of their time, all of their major attention and PR and effort has been in the AI space, which as the pioneer and going in early and standing for that has been a very strong driver. Dominating a category is very important. But particularly, if you’re in B2B, what are we going to say no to?

What can we say that we are for by strongly showing what we’re against?

Bennie

Now one of the things that I think comes through loud and clear as you’re talking about the brands is this notion of also understanding your purpose. So how should purpose be a part of a brand’s true strategy?

Laura 

Well, here’s the thing. I think purpose is very important for the company itself, right? For the mission of the company, for the employees. It’s not always that important for the consumer, depending on the company, right? I mean, if you’re working with LinkedIn, what’s the real strong purpose, right? I mean, you. Yeah, you’re going to connect people and be the business, social media company. But I don’t think the consumer is thinking so much about the purpose. But it is important because in many cases, it can drive also the strategy. So you think about Dove, its real beauty campaign. I mean, there was deep purpose in there and redefining beauty standards about being more open, being more inclusive. And so in those cases, absolutely, purpose comes to play a deep role in the entire strategy, both for the company as well as the end consumer.

Bennie

But it’s interesting. We talked about that, whether the consumers care about it. But they care about the actions of the brand and the customer. So when we think about it in many ways, if the staff internalizes the purpose, then the strategy becomes an extension of that.

Laura 

Yeah. That’s why it is so important for the company itself to own that purpose, understand that purpose, and more importantly, to live that purpose. Because I think it will lead to making the right decisions on strategy, on what to say no to. It sets up those guardrails to say what we should be doing and clearly what we should not be doing. Chick-fil-A is another great one, which I think has greatly internalized it.

But they also have the cow saying, eat more chicken. At the end of the day, you want a chicken sandwich. But they are closed on Sunday, which I think that scarcity sometimes drives you to want things more, doesn’t it? My son is obsessed with Chick-fil-A. And we’re always like, what day is it? Like, Saturday? We’d better go twice, because it’s not going to be open tomorrow.

Bennie 

Right. It’s something that you really want that now it’s being taken away, right?

Laura

Absolutely. I mean, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, again, you know, trying instead of being so customer, I mean, whatever the customer wants, you know, be competitor focused. How are we going to differentiate from our competitors for Chick-fil-A? They don’t sell hamburgers, right? That allows them to hone in on their focus.

Bennie 

So I’m going to give you a chance to go back and think about this. I’m just going to give you four words. Advertising PR Brands Boardroom.

Laura 

Well, those are some of my books.

Bennie 

So, yes. So when you think about it, you had 22 laws of branding and you talk about the rise and fall of everything. Let’s talk a bit about that. We’ve been a little bit on branding, but what do you think today about advertising and its nexus with PR?

Laura

Yeah. The fall of advertising and the rise of PR. Well, now, the title of the book was very provocative, of course, because that makes a very good book title. But the actual book itself, we’re not negative on advertising and say it’s never good. In fact, it’s incredibly important, but not to launch new brands. And that’s the difference. And that’s the same today. You need to launch brands with something that’s credible. And what you say about yourself, not credible, not believable.

And they’re not even going to stop to pay attention from advertising from a brand they’ve never heard of with a message they don’t understand or haven’t heard before. Advertising is best used to repeat something that people already believe, to remind them of it, to keep the noise up about your brand, keep your Coca-Cola bottle out there, your Clydesdale, if you’re Budweiser, those iconic ideas to blast the world with them.

But absolutely today, it’s same as true that the PR word of mouth is what is the biggest driver. social media, sure, but now with these influencers, people are wising up to these people being paid. And really, I like to say there’s a spectrum between in advertising,

Bennie 

Right? Right? So true.

Laura 

And one end and PR on the other. And you find things along the spectrum, if you will, versus your friend who you trust telling you to use this brand, well, that’s score 100 on the PR versus a Super Bowl ad, which is at the other end of the spectrum.

Bennie 

Right. Right. Right. Well, what’s interesting is we go down that continuum. It’s the PR state of the continuum that’s informing the algorithms today. So to your point, you’re going to see a better AI engagement in search off of some of the url media on the PR side than you would on your traditional ad spaces.

Laura 

Well, and that is a very interesting point in changing how the dominance of search where you pay to be at the top and it got real messy real quick the past few years. Now AI being able to kind of cut through the clutter on it and get to and use those most credible sources out there that are independent voices and gathering all that data to give you a clearer picture. The real truth. And here’s the thing. What’s very helpful about the strategic enemy is this idea of people like a good debate. I call these the big brand debates. That is what gets people talking, gets people to pick a side. Either you’re a Mac person or a PC person, you’re a Starbucks person or a Dunkin person. And these drive a lot of the talk and also people in the word of mouth or on the Reddit boards.

Of defending or promoting whatever side they’re on. There’s no one side for everyone. There’s Crumble and there’s Mrs. Fields. I mean, there’s Shopify or there’s Amazon. There’s multiple ways for merchants to go on. And so being one of those top two brands that are diametrically opposed, that’s the place to be. And that’s what is the strong building of brands for companies.

Bennie 

So one of the things you talk about a lot is the fundamental principles of positioning, right? The fundamentals. And we were talking earlier about just the amount of travel we end up doing and your proximity to the largest airport in the world, right? And so your reward for that is you’ve traveled to over 60 countries. And you know, which is amazing in the work that you’re doing, what commonalities do you see?

Laura 

That’s right. I have, I have.

Bennie

In counseling business leaders across the globe on these fundamental principles of positioning.

Laura 

Well, the minds are the same. I mean, what’s interesting is that we have so many shared experiences now. mean, first there was television and then cable, and now the internet, which brings us so close together that we all have these shared movie experiences, shared experiences with McDonald’s, Coke, Microsoft, iPhone. They’re all over the world.

And so there’s tremendous power in building global brands. And they’re not all from the US. I just happened to name some. I mean, there’s IKEA, and there’s Oura Ring, and there’s Spotify, there’s Ely. I mean, they’re all over the world. The opportunity is truly great. What’s interesting, though, is when you go to smaller countries, they often don’t appreciate their ability to build a global brand. Yet there is so much potential.

You do need to do is narrow the focus. In a small country, it’s a little like a small town. What do you find? You find companies that are into everything. Because of the size, they tend to be less focused. Yet when you go global, narrowing the focus even more is essential. And that’s one mistake that companies can make in trying to go global with too many things. mean, back in the day, Nokia was a company that made everything. But when they went global, they did it with just one product, and that was cell phones.

Bennie

just focusing on just one. So you talked about that you see products and brands coming in there. What’s one positioning story you can share with me from outside of the US that really informs your thoughts today? What’s one kind of breakthrough that you’ve seen with a global brand?

Laura 

Yeah, well, it’s, you know, we’ve been to India many times, done a lot of… One of the reasons I’ve been to so many countries is because positioning is such a big idea around the globe. You know, it’s the powerful way of building brands and that book has opened a lot of doors and allowed for the opportunities to speak and work with clients. One of which was a fan, he had a small dairy company in India.

And he had my dad and I fly over there to work with him and his team. And they were selling milk. They don’t have them in containers. They’re like little plastic bags. And they would sell them in these little kiosks. And they wanted to position and sell more milk. And so he’s like, our milk is better. OK, well, how are we going to communicate that?

And he’s like, people, they even water it down. So good. we’re getting to talk and talk. And what happened is his milk had more fat than the other milks. Now in India, people are looking for more fat. That’s good. Calories are good. So instead of trying to find a slogan or a way to communicate that, we said, uh-uh, put on big number on the front of the package the percentage. I can’t exactly. It was like 5 % or 4 point something percent.

Which will instantly show how much is in yours compared to the competitors. And that idea took off like crazy. In fact, the best part of the story is we gave him the idea, worked on the strategy, flew home, and he called us back a few months later and he said, listen, I thought it was a crazy idea, but I paid you guys all that money and you flew all the way here. so I figured I’d just try it. And it was so successful. He became a billion dollar company, one of the richest men in India, as a matter of fact. But a simple idea of a way to visually communicate against your enemies out there, what made your brand better by showing how it was different. Because that’s the thing. At the end of the day, yes, it was perceived as better, but not by saying, I’m better, but by showing what that contrasted to the other brands that had less fat.

Bennie

Really powerful. When you think about the book, Your 22 Laws, is there one law that kind of rises to the top today that you thought was important when you wrote the book, but you’re really realizing it’s important today?

Laura 

Yeah, it does come down to one principle and one word, and that’s focus. Without a focus, positioning is impossible. Finding a strategic enemy isn’t possible. Finding a visual hammer isn’t possible. Your PR strategy isn’t possible. Without a focus, none of it is possible. So companies have to, first and foremost, find that focus.

The honest truth is most entrepreneurs do. They do start with a narrow focus, like Dude Wipes, right? I mean, you know, they’re scrappy entrepreneurs. We got one idea. We’re going to make some Dude Wipes. Here’s what happens. You get a little success and that little success goes to your head. And that’s what happened to Sean Riley at Dude Wipes. And in 2019, he had the big idea. Say, why stop at Wipes? People love these. Our customers love them. We want to be the Dude Nation.

We want to take over the bathroom. We’re going to launch do deodorant and do soaps and do everything. Well, isn’t that what a lot of companies do? And he did. He got those products out to the market. And then as he tells me, he read the book, The 22 Immutable Laws, and he said, and I quote, shit, I’m breaking the law of line extension. And he actually, shut those businesses down. Believe me, it was just in time as the pandemic hit.

We were buying any kind of toilet paper on the shelf, wet, dry, it didn’t matter. And a lot of people discovered dude wipes. And here’s the thing. The resources, money is a big resource, but your time is the most valuable. And because he got out of those distracting line extensions, he had all the time and resources to ramp up production, to ramp up the marketing, and really become a dominant brand and own this category in the mind. And we see…

The fantastic success because of that dedication to focus and building that brand. So remembering that, and not only that, you see the big companies, you see the headlines, you know what I mean. They’re always going back to the basics. What does that mean? Back to their focus, back to what built the brand. Nike going back to…they’re athletes, right? Starbucks going back to coffee. I mean, the headlines are all the same because they get distracted with the, you know, trying to be everything to everybody instead of what do we really own? What do we stand out for and how do we keep repeat, repeat, repeat?

Bennie 

I remember Lego having a similar conversation. They went back to the brick and the figure. They’re like, we’re about these two things. We started with the brick and we evolved to the mini figure and they shut off everything else and kind of regrouped back to that space.

Laura 

Yeah. And became more successful than ever. They went from the brink of bankruptcy to more successful than ever. I mean, that is, you know, again, such a powerful idea of, know, and listen, it’s not easy to build those things, but that’s the power. That’s what makes them different. Those little darn bricks that, you know, but what a key to imagination and way for, you know, to give children that opportunity to not have everything handed to them, but to make them build it themselves.

Bennie

Right.

Laura

It’s a very powerful thing to be.

Bennie 

So we’re gonna continue with this conversation of finding your enemy. I’m curious about the war in the boardroom. That was one space I wasn’t as familiar with as we were going into the conversation. So let’s talk as a person that spends a lot of time in boardrooms. Let’s…

Laura

Well, yeah, the war in the boardroom and it was really about the mindset of management versus marketing. It really, you you think about analytical left brain type management people, right? They’re good with people, they’re good with numbers. And then you’ve got, you know, more right brain creative marketing people and you know, how they approach and see the world in different ways. And some of the fundamental differences were now, management is all about, you know, reality, the reality of the numbers, the reality of the product or service, where marketing understands that it’s not about reality, it’s about the perception. The perception matters most. And so, you know, the book is all set up with these, you know, contradictory ideas of how people, you know, have preconceived notions to, you know, marketing thinks in visuals, management thinks in words, and visuals are tremendously powerful and these different ideas. And at the end of the day, and one of the reasons we wrote the book is because we argued with lot of executives over the years to put in place these kind of positioning ideas. And so to get through to them and to understand and have them understand, it is talking through it and understanding the importance of things like perception.

Bennie 

So strategic enemy is the enemy ever within.

Laura 

It absolutely is within, in many companies. That’s what I’ve talked about in terms of line extension. mean, when you do that, you become your own worst enemy. Instead of giving what I say is the better alternative, it’s giving birth to your own enemy. So you have the example of, did the gap do? One of the greatest things they ever did was launch Old Navy.

Initially, they thought about calling it Gap Warehouse, but that would have been a disaster. You have the regular Gap and Gap Warehouse, right? One’s too cheap and one’s too expensive. Instead, now, Old Navy was able to define that category of, you know, fashionable, inexpensive clothing and, was one of the first and pioneers. So, such a strong strategy.

Bennie

And the generative style loop, right? Because we go from parents who have GAP kids, we grow into Old Navy, then you’re all about the GAP, and then we’re sophisticated and we become Banana Republic. And we’re back to GAP kids again.

Laura 

You’re going to hope. And you’re going to work out at the athletic and all these. The powers in multiple brands. I mean, think about even Apple, its greatest success is not because, obviously, the Apple company and logo spans across all the different brands, but it’s different brands, each named for the different categories that they are in. For example, you have the Macintosh, right? They went from the Apple II to the Macintosh because it was another type.

Bennie 

Yes, yes.

Laura 

Now, the category of computer. Then they had the iPod, right? The first hard drive music player. Such a perfect example of leveraging the strategic enemy, which was those cheap flash drives, right? They could only hold 10 or 20 songs. What did iPod have? A thousand songs in your pocket. The ability to oversimplify your message in that way to make it memorable and distinctive. So, so incredibly powerful. And then they came up with the iPad and of course, as we all know, the iPhone, which was…the first, they gave it a great category name, the first smartphone. What did that do? Instantly repositioned. All the other phones is dumb, right? And that, you know, words and category names are incredibly powerful and you set them up to make your category new and, know, in a new way and new light.

Bennie

Right. I’m gonna ask a provocative question for you here. How would you create a recategorization of marketing and marketers? If you were to look at today’s at the marketing leader of 2026, right?

Laura 

Yeah. marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department. Marketing is so essential to the entire company. As marketers, we need to rise to the very top of the company. Many of the best companies are run by people that truly understand marketing at its core. You think back to, of course, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos and others, but…I mean, it is so incredibly important. Everyone needs to understand marketing because, that was a little bit, you know, the war in the boardroom and marketing versus management. Everyone needs to understand why these types of strategies work, why focus is so important, what positioning is about. And when they understand why, it gets them out there to energize, to go ahead and, you know, follow the advice, follow the strategy, stick to the focus. And, you know, that’s very, very important.

Bennie 

If you had one other piece of advice for strategic minded marketing leaders who were looking to break through brand small or large, what would it be?

Laura 

So much. Instead of thinking about who you are, first think about what you’re not.

Bennie

There it is. What an incredible note to end on, my friend. Thank you. I can’t believe that we’ve gone by this quickly talking about the strategic enemy and focus and understanding who you are and as you put it, most importantly, what you’re not.

So as you lead brands, as you listen to and expand in a world, we encourage you to check out a lot of the work that Laura’s done over the years that really help us think more strategically and more dynamically about brand positioning and the power of it all. Thank you, Laura, for being here. And thank you for taking us through the strategic enemy.

Laura 

Thank you so much.

Bennie

And thank you all for joining us for this provocative and intriguing episode of AMAs Marketing / And. I’m your host, Bennie F. Johnson, and we encourage you to check out Laura’s latest book, The Strategic Enemy, and to explore the offerings and programming of the American Marketing Association. Thank you.