The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

02Why Being First Always Beats Being Better

There is a dangerous and pervasive myth floating around the business world that keeps hardworking entrepreneurs awake at night, constantly tweaking and perfecting their offerings. This myth suggests that the marketplace is a perfectly rational arena where the absolute best product will always overcome the competition and win in the end. It sounds incredibly fair and just, but unfortunately, human psychology does not work that way. The Law of Leadership dictates that it is vastly more important to be the first brand in a category than it is to have the objectively better product. The human mind is highly protective and strictly filters out new information. Once a brand is the first to enter the mind, the brain anchors onto it and fiercely resists changing its allegiance. Consider the fascinating reality of higher education. Harvard is widely considered the most prestigious university in the United States. But is Harvard truly providing an objectively better education than a dozen other top-tier universities? Do their professors possess some magical teaching ability that does not exist at Stanford or Yale? The truth is, Harvard’s primary advantage is that it was the very first college established in America. It got into the minds of the public first, firmly planting its flag as the ultimate standard of academic excellence. Every university that came after it, no matter how extraordinary its curriculum or facilities, has been forced to measure itself against the standard that Harvard set simply by arriving early. The same principle applies to everyday consumer goods. Think about the rental car industry. Hertz was the first major brand to aggressively enter the mind of the consumer in the rent-a-car category. Because they were first, they became the undisputed leader. Avis and National have spent millions of dollars trying to convince the public that their cars are cleaner, their lines are shorter, or their service is friendlier, but dislodging the first mover is nearly impossible. People inherently believe that the first brand they hear about is the original, and therefore, it must be the best. The "better product" illusion traps companies into spending fortunes on marketing campaigns that logically argue why their features are superior, completely ignoring the fact that consumers make decisions based on emotional shortcuts, not logical feature-by-feature comparisons. But what happens if you arrive late to the party? What if someone else has already claimed the number one spot in your desired market? Do you just give up and go home? Absolutely not! This brings us to the brilliant Law of the Category. If you cannot be the first brand in an existing category, your most effective strategy is to invent a brand new category that you can be first in. This is a profound shift in thinking. Instead of trying to aggressively push a boulder up a hill by attacking the market leader, you simply step to the side and create your own hill. Let us look at a historical example that beautifully illustrates this concept. Everyone knows Charles Lindbergh. Why? Because he was the first person to fly an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean. He is a legend. But do you know who the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic was? His name was Bert Hinkler. He actually flew faster and consumed less fuel than Lindbergh. By all objective measures, he flew a "better" flight. Yet, Bert Hinkler is completely forgotten by history because the world does not care about who is second or who is slightly better. However, do you know who the third person to fly solo across the Atlantic was? Amelia Earhart! She is world-famous. Why? Because she did not market herself as the third person to fly across the Atlantic; she became the first woman to do it. She created a brand new category, and by being first in that new category, she achieved immortality. You can apply this exact same logic to your business. If you are launching a new beer into a market completely dominated by massive domestic giants, trying to convince people your beer tastes better is a losing battle. But what if you become the first imported beer? That is exactly what Heineken did. They created a new category and dominated it. If you want to open a burger restaurant, but McDonald's and Burger King already own the fast-food space, what do you do? You create a new category! You become the first gourmet, sit-down burger lounge, or the first purely organic, plant-based burger truck. Stop trying to convince the world that your product is 10% better than the leader. The consumer’s mind is already made up. Instead, use your creativity to build a new box, firmly label it with your brand, and revel in the incredible power of being the first to arrive.

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