1. The Law of Leadership

“It’s better to be the first than it is to be better”

an Italian mineral water company, was launched in India in the year 1965 and bought by Parle in 1969. Bisleri is now the market leader in bottled water category in India, with 37% market share. The name ‘Bisleri’ has become synonymous to bottled water

launched in 1959 under the brand name 'Surf' in India as a first detergent powder, now is a major home care brand

synonymous with instant noodles in India and had 90% market share

is the oldest and the most established dairy brand in the country. It now has the market share of 14% in dairy foods

is India’s first fairness cream, launched in 1975, today it commends the largest market share in beauty care

2. The Law of Category

“If you can’t be the first in a category, set up a new

category you can be first in”

Emami Brand was India’s first men’s fairness cream and is the leading brand in this category

was the first in India to introduce taxi aggregator app in 2010. It is now one of the largest taxi service providers with a network of more than 200,000 cars across 85 cities

introduced traditional Indian snacks in the packaged food category, it lead the market with 18% market share in sweet and savoury snacks category

a no gas deodorant in India, it now leads in the new deodorant category as well as the overall deodorant category with 16% market share

a mobile app for restaurants reviews and booking, created a new category of mobile apps and is now spread across 22 countries

3. The Law of Minds

“It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the

marketplace”

comes to our mind whenever we think of mileage as we think that Maruti is synonymous with mileage

is synonymous with luxury cars in India although it is not the first company to launch luxury cars

is synonymous with e-commerce industry in India

Comes to our mind whenever we come across any cut/wound

comes to our mind whenever we think of any adhesive as compared to other products although it was not the first product

4. The Law of Perception

“Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions”

perceived as dandruff removing shampoo and is potent against dandruff problems

processers are perceived to be fast processors as compared to AMD processors for computing purposes

is perceived to be a Glucose biscuit that is it can be an alternate source of energy

is generally perceived as being a cheap car or the 1 lakh car although its present price is somewhere around 2.2 lakhs

is perceived to have a 2 minutes cooking time, whereas the actual cooking time of Maggi is more than 2 minutes

5. The Law of Focus

“The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind”

With the campaigns ‘One time is a beautiful thing’, Indigo has been focussing on having timely services in the otherwise cluttered airline industry

Set Wet’s TVC used the tagline ‘very very sexy’. It was able to gain significant market share as a result of this

The tagline catered to the ‘self-actualization’ level of Maslow’s Hierarchy and has helped the brand to create its own image

Focussing on home delivery services, its campaigns had the tagline ‘khushiyonki home delivery’. It also offered free pizzas if delivery time exceeded 30 minutes. These efforts have helped Dominoes become the market leader with 23% market share, ahead of Pizza Hut

Focussing on the word energy, Glucose-D has been able to ‘burn’ its way into the consumers’ minds

6. The Law of Exclusivity

Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind

Pepsi (Youngistan) – Focussing on the youngsters. Which helped Pepsi to capture market of youngsters from opponent coca cola (Pride).

Long lasting

Maggi (2 Minutes) – This instant noodle brand from Nestle focussed on the cooking time and was able to burn its way into the minds of customers.

Hutch (Connectivity) simple idea and insight brought to the fore its core proposition - that of a superior network.

Mercedes Benz has focussed on the word excellence, to distinguish itself as a luxury brand, where Volvo (Safety) concentrated on safety.

Dominoes (Home Delivery) – Focussing on home delivery services, its campaigns had the tagline ‘khushiyon ki home delivery’. It also offered free pizzas if delivery time exceeded 30 minutes. These efforts have helped Dominoes become the market leader with 23% market share, ahead of Pizza Hut(Flavour of Now)

7. The Law of the LadderThe strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the

ladder.

Alto is entry level leader. Renault Kwid was launched competing with Alto in this segment.

Coca Cola comes in the 1st rung of ladder then comes 2nd PepsiCo

IIM Ahmedabad is the 1st rung of management institutes ladder in India. Their strategy is different from other institutes which comes below in the ladder

Airtel, Idea, Vodafone come among the top rung of the ladder. Each other’s strategies effect the others business.

8.Law of Duality

In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race

Visa and MasterCard are the major players of financial services Provider. American express was once a prominent player

These two account more than 90% of he market share in carbonated soft drink market

In the present day market these two are the most important market players

09. The Law of the Opposite

If you're shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader. Appeal the group of people who do not want to buy from the leader Product accrues negative baggage with time. Encash the opportunity A good No. 2 can't afford to be timid. When you give up focusing on No.

1, you make yourself vulnerable not only to the leader but to the rest of the pack 

Bajaj Discover 125 vs Splendor

In the year 2012, Bajaj came up with its campaign Chalta Nahin, Daudta Hai targeting Hero’s Splendor

Savlon and Dettol

Antiseptic that does not hurt while healing

Flipkart and Snapdeal

The Hindu vs TOI

Trolling TOI in their newspaper

Pepsodent Germicheck vs Colgate

10) The Law of Division

“Over a period of time, most categories will divide into numerous segments, each acting like a category”

Earlier only mobile handsets were available in the market but now they can be categorised as Bar phones, Smart phones ,Phablets and Tablets.eg Samsung has launched bar phones like Guru , smart phones like the Galaxy S6, phablets like Note 4 and tablets Galaxy tab 3

Were split into regional , national , business newspapers and magazines.eg Times Groupnewspapers were split into Maharashtra times, TOI , ET and Zig wheels( Magazine)

They were categorized as Business formals and business casuals e.g. Van Heusen was split into Van Heusen formals and Van Huesen Sports

Soaps were divided into glycerine soaps, transparent soaps and cleansing bars .e.g. HUL Dove, Lux, Lifebuoy and Pears

Over a period of time biscuits were divided into different categories like cream biscuits, cookies, nutritional biscuits and snacks biscuits. E.g. Britannia brands like Marie Gold, Good Day, Bourbon and 50 50

11.Law of perspective

Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time

They play on deep discounts and provide continuous discounts in order to keep the sales flowing and encourage the customers coming to e-commerce websites. The trend has been so that the customers now shop from E-commerce websites mostly because they are available at a discounted price.

In order to increase its sales during weekdays, Big Bazaar started giving discounts on Wednesdays. But the result was that the footfall during Wednesdays soared while the footfall which was high during weekends, went down.

12. The Law of Line Extensions 

There is often an irresistible temptation to extend the equity of a successful brand into unrelated fields

Originally a cigarette company has extended its line to hotels, agro business, FMCG products, stationary products and IT business

Originally Tata was into textiles and steel making and over the years it extended its business to automobiles, airlines, salt, and power

Muthoot group – Initially into finance but now it caters to insurance, health care, hospitality

Known for its aerated drinks the brand has over the years extended its line to packaged drinking water, chips and other FMCG products

13. The Law of Sacrifice

You have to actually give up all the choices and focus on one thing in order to achieve anything significant

The Strategy of targeting the youth segment in order to compete with Coca Cola and other companies to capture the market share indicates the law of sacrifice strategy adopted by PepsiCo.

The Apple Inc. has always concentrated on manufacturing quality products for the upper middle and higher class segment. It does not manufacture products for the lower class or the bottom of the pyramid segment.

Harley Davidson has specialized in manufacturing Cruiser bikes and sacrificing on the product line.

Rolls Royce caters to only High Net-worth Individuals (HNIs) for their cars and has foregone the lower class and the middle class population.

Vini cosmetics came up with idea of a deodorant ‘with no gas’ and competed on attribute to last longer than other similar products.

14. Law of attributes

For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.

Sony Vaio offered laptops with different colours and talked little about the specifications, which was the attribute on which different players were competing in the market.

Lenovo came up with a 300 degree rotating screen laptop model when the major players were talking on grounds of specifications.

Discovery communications instead of competing in the information channel sector directly with national geographic channel came up with Animal Planet channel which concentrated on life science only.

Vini cosmetics came up with idea of a deodorant ‘with no gas’ and competed on attribute to last longer than other similar products.

Hector Beverages came up with ethnic drinks by the name of Paperboat and competed on grounds of different taste than other similar offerings.

15. The Law of Candor

When you admit a negative, the prospect (potential customer) will give you a positive response for it

Volkswagen-The 1970 VW will stay ugly longer

Volkswagen- Volkswagen did it when they acknowledged that the "bug" is ugly.

Listerine – the taste you hate twice a day.

Avis -Since changing the mind of a prospect is difficult once it has been made up, then marketing strategy should consist of ideas and concepts that already exist in their mind. Avis was remarkable in doing this when they advertised being No. 2.

Bourneville- Cadbury came up with the campaign “Not so Sweet” to attract the different youth segment with their attitude and gained a large attention for this pure dark chocolate which has a strong taste.

16 The Law of SingularityIn each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.

Maruti Swift- Maruti came up with a single stroke when we talk about power and design’s best combination in Indian market. Sales hiked in a very short span of time.

SBI- The State Bank of India customized its all softwares, implement the new core system, and provide ongoing operational support for its centralized information technology.

Chevrolet -With the success of Japanese and German flanking attacks, General Motors was under pressure to commit resources in an attempt to shore up the bottom and the top of its lines. 

Coca-Cola (get it, “classic”)- They have been battling back and forth with Pepsi for years. Coke was the first in the prospect’s mind and owns the word classic which relates to the older generation.

17. The Law of Sacrifice

Unless you can write your competitors plans you can’t predict the future

During the 1996 World Cup Coca Cola failed to anticipate competitor Pepsi’s reaction to its official sponsorship for the World Cup. Pepsi in reply launched one of the most successful campaigns witnessed in India – the ‘Nothing official about it Campaign’

Even though Orkut was much more popular before Facebook entered Indian market. It was not able to compete with the competition and Facebook took over the social media segment

The ever popular blackberry messenger which was only available on Blackberry Smartphones did not react in time to the competition by WhatsApp Messenger which was available freely on android thus leading to the decline of sales of Blackberry Smartphones

Even though Nokia was the market leader in terms of market share in India in the mobile phones segment. Nokia failed to compete with the popularity of android operating system (OS) and stuck to its Symbian OS and Windows phones, leading to loss of market share and decline in sales

Zynga was well positioned when it was able to market games like ‘Zynga Poker’ and ‘Farmville’ to Facebook’s users but since the popularity of Smartphones where games such as ‘Candy Crush’ have become popular, it has failed come up with another popular game and is survive for survival

Law# 18 The Law of Success

Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure

The Law of Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure. The companies think their strategies are the best and no one else is better than them. This may be true, but expressing it arrogantly is a dangerous attitude that can lead to financial hardship. In the fitness industry relationships are important to success. Customers need to trust you and once they do they will always be your customers.

Hindustan Ambassador - Ambassador was the first car to be made in India and was once a status symbol, but began losing its dominance in the mid-1980s when Maruti Suzuki introduced its low-priced 800 hatchback and further when global automakers began setting up shop in India in the mid-1990s, offering models with contemporary designs and technology. It failed to re-invent itself.

IBM – In 1985 IBM assumed they owned the PC market. They concentrated too much on hardware while ignoring development on software and internet

Nokia – From 60% market share in 2006 it lost in mobile market, being slow to adapt to trends in smartphones, dual sim phones, and touchscreens. Finally it got taken over by competitors and was sold to Microsoft.

Kodak – It was clear market leader but lost when during the dawn of digital age.

Blackberry – Once market leader in terms of Safety and privacy in mobile communication, it remain stagnant on this two factorials while ignoring need for wi-fi, restrictive memory capacity and capacitive touchscreen. It adapted it later but was too late for it

19. The Law of FailureFailure is to be expected and accepted.

Coca cola bought Thumsup, and tried to decrease the brand presence so that COKE sales wold increase. This strategy failed, but Coke did not make changes for a long time. Now, Thumsup is also being marketed and sold.

Flipkart big billion day sale faced a lot of technical and distribution problems. Flipkart admitted the mistake and made changes and improvements in the same

Among the worst performing MPVs in India, the Evalia has always struggled to get going in the segment. To make things better, Nissan had even given the Evalia a couple of facelifts, but all efforts went in vain as the MPV didn’t strike the right cord with Indian car buyers.

Maruti has decided to pull the plug on the Estilo due to poor sales. Since its launch in 2007, the Maruti Estilo was a replacement for the Zen but it could never garner the strong sales of its predecessor.

Sales of Tavera cars of Toyota were effected due to emission problems which could not be corrected.

The situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.

20 The Law of Hype

The Diet Coke was advertised in worldwide as better than Coke classic. But,Diet Coke was a failure.

Tata Nano, did not reach the hype created around it.

Many movies like Ra-1, Bang Bang did not reach the hype that was created around them.

Akash Tablet introduced as cheaper price was much hyped but was a failure

Apple iWatch was seen as the next big thing, but its sales were way below expectations

21. The Law of Acceleration Successful programs are not built on fads, they're built on trends.

Though jeans entered into market decades ago, it is still trending.

Selfie stick - FAD

Loafers

Cheetos cards

Social Networking – Whatsapp, Facebook (Trend)

22. The Law of ResourcesWithout adequate funding an Idea won't get off the ground