The Secret Weapon of Great Brands

0:00You know, over the years, you've heard me talk a lot about marketing systems.

0:30Tape Marketing 3.0. As a dad, I couldn't be prouder, but I want you to check it out at dtm.world slash unchained and get ready to take your strategy to a whole new level.

0:52Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz and my guest today is Laura Reese. She's a globally recognized branding strategist, bestselling author and president of Reese and Reese, the firm she runs with her father, legendary positioning pioneer Al Reese. Laura's guided Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups alike on how to win the battle of the mind through bold, focused brand positioning. We're going to talk today about her latest book, The Strategic Enemy, how to build and position a brand worth fighting for. So Laura, welcome back to the show.

1:28Well, thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be here and to see you again. Likewise. And you know, there are very few people I can say this to, but you know, when I was just getting started, your father's book was very instrumental read for me as well. I'm sure you've heard that more than once. It was a very instrumental book for me as well. It's what got me here and got me interested in falling in love with positioning. And so it's Such a pleasure to have had the chance to work with him for so many years. And as you and I have talked before, you know, my daughter actually is our CEO and has worked with me for 15 years.

2:02So it's kind of that, you know, it's funny. People who maybe haven't done that before, you know, have a lot of questions about like, how does that work? So I'm curious for you. I mean, for us, it's been great. We have a great personal relationship. We don't take that. I mean, we do take it into business because I trust her at a level that I don't think I would ever trust anyone else in business. and things of that nature. But, you know, it doesn't, some of the drama that people are used to, I just, we've never experienced it as that. I get the sense that you're probably in that same boat. Yeah, no, you do have that, that long-term trust and, you know, you're in it for the long haul for your family, you hope.

2:38And so that, that longevity and history and all that you bring into it. But yeah, you do have to, you know, love what you do. I think that's the most important thing. I love positioning. It wasn't that I just my dad was cool. Right. But I also really enjoyed I loved learning from him. And then, of course, I enjoyed to teach him a few tricks as well, too. Yeah. Of course, you wouldn't stick around if you loved it. It's it's a grind. You got to have some passion for it. So let's jump right into the book. One of my first questions and I think I know. Well, I know the answer to this, but I want you to clarify.

3:11How would you differentiate between a strategic enemy and, say, a competitor? Well, companies have lots of competitors, right? So that's the reality. But a strategic enemy is strategic in terms of it's very important in your strategy. It's always important to understand the enemy. But like I said, there's many. But you want to pick that one. And the most important thing is you want to show what the contrast is. And so that is, for example, you have Liquid Death, right? One of the hottest new water brands. They picked not other water brands, but plastic water bottles as the enemy. Death to plastics is their slogan.

3:49So they said no to something. They didn't offer it in plastic. And they very pointedly said that, you know, we are killing the earth with plastic. Aluminum is much more infinitely recyclable. Sadly, we don't even recycle much plastic anymore, even though they can be. So very important message. And of course, they have, you know, brilliant, snazzy marketing along with it. But it is backed by something very specific, very tangible and very much a difference from the enemy that they have set up. Another is, you know, for example, Uber. The original name was UberCab.com, if you remember back in the day.

4:21I actually don't know that I knew that. No, no, I didn't either. But, you know, I do my research on these books. And but if you have a name like UberCab, how can taxis be the enemy? The strongest thing to rally consumers for your cause is not so much to say, you know, come with us. We're great, but let's fight somebody else. Let's fight those taxi cabs out there. And we have a better way. Our way is that new category, which is always the best way to build a brand. And that was, you know, Uber with the ride sharing. You know, it's really interesting because I'm sure most people's minds go to the enemy being like, you know, the people that beat you out, you know, for, you know, whatever, you know, work that you get.

5:01And as I listen to this, it's probably in some ways the enemy can just be a problem that your ideal client is facing. Right. Absolutely. It's like I say, it's not evil corp is the enemy. Right. That it's a really big bad guy or thing or something out there. It is two things, either a problem that you're going to solve or just the alternative. There's not just one way to do something. I mean, think about mouthwash, Listerine. that, you know, it's medicine breath is what Scope said, because they were selling good tasting mouthwash. But, you know, Listerine, the fact that taste you hate twice a day, I mean, that talked to the efficacy.

5:38I mean, it was very strong. That's what was killing all the germs. So there's two sides of every coin. And that's the important part of strategy and of thinking about positioning in a way that it's not just what we are, but what is the contrasting alternative that puts us in a better light? I mean, there's always, you know, multiple ways to look at things. I mean, some people like regular cow's milk. It's delicious. But then you have Oatly coming in with, wow, no cow, and selling, you know, this is milk for humans, you know, made from oats. So it's, well, I shouldn't say it almost. It is, I mean, a really key point of this book is you're saying that brands need to actually maybe go looking for this enemy, find it, right?

6:18I mean, not necessarily make it up, but like without it, you even go as far as what was your statement I wrote down here? Brands without enemies or brands without energy? That we actually need to go find this. Without meaning. And here's the biggest problem is most companies aren't focused enough to have an enemy. They do too many things in too many markets and try to appeal to too many people. And when you do that, you don't have a focus. And without a focus, you don't have an enemy. So sometimes the first thing is looking at yourself and saying, what can we say no to? If you say no to something, that tends to put you in a direction where you can find an enemy.

6:52What did Southwest do? They said no to first class being the coach class only. That was, you know, they had more affordable seating. They also made the whole, you know, theme of the airline being about fun and games and they, you know, the stewardesses and airline attendants would make jokes and crack jokes. But, you know, you can't crack jokes if you got a first class and a curtain and then us back in the coach, right? So that focus can very much help you define what your identity is and position against what that, you know, enemy you have put out there. And but companies too often get in trouble because what is Southwest doing today?

7:27They're adding first class and premium seating. Charging for bags. Undermine. The bags don't fly. And here's the thing. Seat assignments, I'm all for. That's going to, you know, get rid of the chaos. But bags not flying free. That was something that they could anchor their brand on and say, everybody else is, charging for bags, but here bags fly free. And listen, that has an operational efficiency too, because if the bags fly free, people will check them and then you can board the plane. Otherwise, everyone's carrying all their bags on with them and that slows down everything. So it is very sad when companies lose their focus and we're trying to fight that fight to help them stay focused.

8:08So it sounds like I hear you saying that really the first step too is that you've got to know who you are first before you can go out there and find the enemy maybe. But in a lot of ways, it probably starts with narrowing your focus, right? Here's who we're for. So here's who we're not for. It's probably step one, isn't it? Yeah. It's, you know, it's a balance between of, you know, knowing who you are, you know, what you can say no to. But at the end of the day, focus has always been, you know, the key critical element of positioning itself. And, you know, The enemy is line extension, going in too many directions, diluting what your brand is.

8:43And when companies do focus, then they can make use of that strategic enemy. And it's creating the contrast so that people can better understand. Because listen, people don't have time. We've got to make these communications very simple, very clear, so that people understand and also understand the choice. For example, you've got edible arrangements, which now goes by edible, which I don't, you know, don't always shorten your name because edible today has a very different connotation. I live in Colorado. There you go. That's not what they're selling. They are selling edible fruit arrangements, which has a fantastic strategic enemy.

9:20Why buy flowers that will die, right? When you can send a delicious edible bouquet. But edible arrangements as a, you know, a name is very strong. But again, it's the category that really matters. because people care more about the category than they do about brands. I hate to tell you, but while they speak in brands, we think, oh, you know, people love a Tesla. No, they don't love the Tesla brand. It's the category that they dominate, which is EV electric vehicles, a category that is booming right now. I mean, you know, people still buy them despite what they think of Elon Musk and all of his shenanigans.

9:53But, you know, very strong brand that did absolutely do the, you know, many of the things we preach about being first and pioneering a category. and only focusing on EVs, which here's the problem. Originally, this was a tiny market. The major automobile makers, they thought it was niche. I mean, they ignored it for many years, and that allowed Tesla to get in, not so much build the market initially, but build the mind of the consumer that Tesla was the car that stood for it. So you can take advantage of the big companies are slow on these things. Another one was Red Bull. Coca-Cola ignored Red Bull for years until, you know, after 10 years, it was$100 million and they woke up and said, whoops.

10:33But when they competed late, you know, it was too late to the game. A full throttle, Tab Energy, all of the others they try to launch were big losers. The brand that pioneers it, particularly when they do it with a good name, a good strategy and a strong message, you know, it gives you wings if you didn't know. A lot of those, a lot of those big companies just go out and buy the competition. That's not a bad idea. Listen, if you've got the money, I mean, today, What has Coca-Cola done? They can't launch their, they even tried Coca-Cola energy, if you can believe that. But they have made, you know, they put a stake into Monster, which is the only brand that has successively competed against Red Bull.

11:10And today as a very strong leader globally in the energy drink market, how did they do it? They didn't copy Red Bull. They didn't try to be better. They came in a 16 ounce can. Now, is that better? Who knows? It's different and it's visually different. And not only that, they combined it with a great name, a simple visual hammer, the green claw. They've got, you know, monster motocross and truck events and all sorts of things. They've utilized that strategy to unify their anchor as to what they stand for against their competitor Red Bull. But how do you compete with that? Well, the big number three today is Celsius.

11:45They're hot in the energy drink market by not going the masculine male approach as what mostly Red Bull and Monster have done, but it's a more unisex, fitness-friendly, no sugar, and they've taken on a very good chunk of the market by going and being different. You know, over the years, you've heard me talk a lot about marketing systems. Today, I get to share something really special. My daughter, Sarah Nay, who also happens to be the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, just released her first book. It's called Unchained, breaking free from broken marketing models and how small business can finally take control of their marketing, lead with strategy, and scale with AI.

12:26I know, a mouthful, right? But it's everything we've learned taken to the next level. In fact, we're even calling it Duct Tape Marketing 3.0. As a dad, I couldn't be prouder. But I want you to check it out at dtm.world slash unchained and get ready to take your strategy to a whole new level. So we're talking about big brands essentially right now, but you've developed a framework that is really core to the book. Do you want to kind of walk us through some of the steps? And like, if you walked into a company and let's, you know, let's put the big brands aside. You walked into a company that's kind of trying to make their way now, trying to, you know, what are kind of some of the steps you would take somebody through?

13:08And again, obviously I didn't give you a type of company or anything. Well, I mean, you've got tons of examples. And listen, I love working with entrepreneurs. I mean, that is actually the most exciting. They have such creative new ideas and potential. And not only that, most importantly, they have the courage and the balls to really do something different. But it's something that the big companies usually don't have. For example, in the moist toilet paper market, the early pioneers were, you know, Cottonelle Fresh Wipes, which never really went anywhere because it had a, you know, it was Cottonelle, Kleenex, Fresh Wipes, something or other.

13:42They were trying to position a dual. You need two things. You need wet and dry, which never really resonated until one guy was living in a post-college apartment with a bunch of dudes eating, as he says, you know, lots of burritos, drinking late nights and they needed some heavy duty cleaning up in the bathroom. So on his weekly trip to Costco, he picked up the usual baby wipes and a bunch of other stuff that the guys like to use. And he said, wait a minute, why isn't there a company that makes a product I want to use? That's meant for me and my guy friends and cleans up like a baby wipe does, but it's also flushable and environmentally friendly.

14:17And he did that. He just pioneered that category. It's called dude wipes. It has over$350 million a year, but it was just a guy with an idea. But first and foremost, he saw a problem, right? It didn't create the category, but he said, everyone is not doing it in the right way. They're not focused and they're not strongly calling out an enemy. I mean, Cottonelle can't say, you know, dry toilet paper sucks, but dude wipes can. Dude wipes says, you're wasting your time with that. You're just smearing it around. I mean, they say all sorts of crazy things, but a very powerful message by narrowing the focus, by taking on the enemy.

14:56And, you know, going in with entrepreneurs, it is so exciting because you can really take on the big guys. You don't have to be a big guy because you can, you know, you leverage where they're weak. And in every strength, there is always some kind of weakness, even in Amazon, if you can believe it. A bunch of entrepreneurs launched Shopify and they said, you know, Amazon is not really serving the merchants, right? They're all about the customer and they do such a great job on that. They're kind of giving the short shaft to the merchants. So, you know, Shopify is the merchant hero. They're, you know, they're setting it up so merchants can have their own stores, making it totally seamless, easy to do, you know, giving them all the tools, support they need.

15:34And they've been a very strong competitor to helping companies sell their goods on the internet. Yeah. And of course, their connected network has now made them even more powerful. But, you know, literally, it was just a bunch of guys who, you know, tried to sell their own website and said, hey, maybe instead of, was it surfing stuff? I can't remember. But instead of selling this, I mean, they gave that up quick and said, we're just going to, you know, sell the software, the backbone of this. And, you know, they added incrementally all the other things and bells and whistles that went along with it.

16:03But it's that key one idea. You know, Airbnb was the same way. I mean, it was, you know, a bunch of guys living in San Francisco that said, wait a minute. You know, at hot periods of conferences, it's impossible and very costly to get a hotel. Why don't we put some air mattresses in our living room? We're going to call it air bread and breakfast and rent out the room. And, you know, today they are taking on hotels in a big way. Oh, yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. In fact, you're seeing some hotels actually now try to get into that business a little bit, you know, to instead of just having their rooms, you know, actually buying houses.

16:41But is that the right idea? Because, listen, I've stayed in an Airbnb. I've stayed in a hotel. There's advantages to hotels. I kind of like the fresh towels and the very clean sheets and the service that goes along with it. I mean, there's no one way to do something. And, you know, instead of, you know, thinking about how can we copy Airbnb? be, how can we make hotels a better deal, right? And celebrate what is, you know, a very nice, you know, experience in a hotel. Now, here's the other thing. The best thing you can do as a big company or when you get to that size, if you're an entrepreneur listening, is multiple brands.

17:17Give birth to your own enemy is a better strategy. Not trying to put one brand on many things, instead having multiple brands. And you see even great examples. So Mike's Hard Lemonade was a big success at the turn of the century. As kids were turning away, young drinking adults were turning away from beer and other things. They enjoyed the Mike's Hard Lemonade. But as a few years went by, we realized it had just as much sugar as a Coke almost and a ton of calories and we all were cutting carbs. So what did they do? Instead of line extending Mike's into, well, they also did that, honestly, into Mike's Light Lemonade.

17:57They launched White Claw, the first hard seltzer. And this, you know, this is the typhoon of the seltzers of billions of dollars. And listen, it doesn't even taste very good, but it is a new category. And as a hard seltzer, you know, that again, naming the category is incredibly important. And Zima, I mean, you're as old as I am. You know, we don't remember Zima. They didn't know what it was. What was it? I mean, it was similar to, you know, again, what White Claw is selling. But, you know, they didn't quite name the category and explain to us what it is. And when we don't know what something is, doesn't always taste very good.

18:36And that was one of the experiences of the Zimas. Yeah, that seltzer category is probably booming like beer. My craft beer was at one point. Absolutely. Absolutely. And not only that, there's a huge, there's always opportunity out there, which is what makes marketing and business and entrepreneurs so exciting. You think, like, I never thought there could be another water brand. I mean, how many hundreds of water brands? And then came Liquid Death. And you thought, like, beer, how many beer brands? But have you heard of this athletic brewing? This is the hottest new thing. It's beer without alcohol.

19:11What fun is that? But anyway, there's a big trend into drinking less. Do you really want to drink a Heineken Zero or a Bud Zero? I mean, come on. But this new brand owns the category and celebrates it and says, you know, live an athletic lifestyle, you know, no hangovers. And one of the things they did as an important part of the strategy is they knew they needed credibility, that this was something that was not just non-alcoholic. I mean, there was O'Doul's and kind of other brands out there, but it was a good tasting quality beer. And so they aggressively entered it into competitions. And that drove a lot of the PR.

19:48In fact, one of the competitions, they beat beer with alcohol. They have, you know, just a great way of talking about it and pointing out that enemy, which is, you know, why bother with the alcohol? Why not live for a better tomorrow? Well, it's interesting because they created a subcategory, non-alcoholic beer that tastes good, because I think the category was there's non-alcoholic beer, right? Yeah. That was the category. So if they got lumped into that category, they probably weren't going to go anywhere. They're not going to fight Anheuser-Busch, probably. Yeah, not being a line extension and not trying to look like a beer.

20:21The other thing they did that was very brilliant, and visuals matter. Visuals are incredibly important. Athletic only comes in cans. All of the other brands, you know, of course, they offer it, but they promote the glass because they feel it looks premium. And it does. But athletic, I mean, what's their position? I mean, athletic lifestyles, you can't bring gas, a glass bottle on a camping trip or a boat. You need the can. And the can and bright pastel colors was a distinctive difference that also communicated how different they were than all the other products. Yeah. So I want to end with a, you know, because I think a lot of people listening right now are getting very fired up about their, how they're going to go out there and create their enemy.

21:01What's the risk of creating you call foe enemies? I mean, just kind of like making them up. Well, no, you can't make them up. But certainly people try, right? I mean, it's like, here's our rivalry, but it's like. The rivalry has to be real. But it doesn't have to be something. For example, I've got a phone case. It's called Flaunt. What's their big difference? It's a square case. And that's instantly visible difference. But they promote that as, you know, their positioning, their difference, you know, what makes them great. And I love a square case. It looks cool. It's fun. I stick my iPhone in there.

21:38But yeah, absolutely. It has to be not just, you know, claiming a boogeyman out there as the enemy, but something that is real, that's a tangible problem, a tangible enemy. And there's always more than ways, more than one way to do something. I mean, sometimes you want the very best, right? A high price can be a benefit, but sometimes, you know, also the ease of and the shopping experience, for example, going to Costco. People love Costco. Even the Kirkland brand is rising, right? Because people are saying they're making a statement and the company's focus on producing very high quality. And also, you know, the ease of not over, you know, there's only 4 ,000 items.

22:16It really makes it much easier to choose when there's fewer things to choose from. That's funny because, of course, not every brand, not every, everybody's going to like every brand. I don't like Costco. I think it's a terrible shopping experience. I go in there and I can't find anything. Well, you know, they do that on purpose because they want you to wander the aisles and see, I love the discovery of it. But that's the point. There is no one. And here's the problem. Most companies like Kmart, right, they're trying to appeal to everyone. They want people that, you know, want the bulk kind of Costco.

22:48They want people that want the simple shopping or they try to be everything. It's much better to take a very narrow stance and not worry if it doesn't appeal to everybody. I did love a good blue light special, though. You got to admit, that was amazing. It was a visual idea. You can give your strategy some way to visualize it. It makes it much more powerful. I mean, think about duct tape. I mean, what a great way to communicate something that's instantly understand in the mind. We know what we do with duct tape. We know how great duct tape is. It can fix anything. And what, you know, using metaphors like that are a great way to do branding.

23:25Awesome. Well, Laura, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more certainly about Strategic Enemy, but also your courses and the things that you do around it? Well, of course, you can visit us online at reese.com and that's R-I-E-S.com. We've got strategicenemy.com and I've just launched a sub stack. Yay. Exciting newsletters. I've got even the Reese hotline where companies are calling in. Well, it's fake. Don't tell anybody. But I pretend Unlike companies are coming in and I give them really great advice.