INSIGHT
HERE ARE THE 22
IMMUTABLE LAWS
OF MARKETING
LEADERSHIP
It’s better to be first than
it is to be better
CANDOUR
When you admit a
negative, the prospect
will give you a positive
You have to give up
something in order to
get something
PERCEPTION
Marketing is not a battle
of products, it’s a battle
of perceptions
FOCUS
DIVISION
Two companies cannot
own the same word in
the prospect’s mind
OPPOSITE
If you’re shooting for
second place, your strategy
is determined by the leader
Over time, a category will
divide and become two
or more categories
The most powerful
concept in marketing
is owning a word in the
prospect’s mind
In each situation, only
one move will produce
substantial results
EXCLUSIVITY
SACRIFICE
EXTENSION
There’s an irresistible
pressure to extend the
equity of the brand
SINGULARITY
MIND
Success often leads
to arrogance, and
arrogance to failure
LADDER
The strategy to use
depends on which rung
you occupy on the ladder
DUALITY
In the long run, every
market becomes a two-
horse race
PERSPECTIVE
It’s better to be first in
the mind than to be first
in the market place
SUCCESS
Marketing effects take
place over an extended
period of time
HYPE
The situation
is often the
opposite of the
way it appears in
the press
CATEGORY
RESOURCES
Without adequate
funding an idea won’t
get off the ground
ACCELERATION
Successful programmes are
not built on fads, they’re
built on trends
UNPREDICTABILITY
FAILURE
Unless you write your
competitors’ plans, you can’t
predict the future
competitors and how
tough is that competition?
On a lower level there might be
features and benefits the competition
has that you might want to emulate.
And finally, you’ve got the practical
operational side of the business to
sort out.
At the very beginning of this whole
process is a fundamental question:
which market category are we going
to take on? If you don’t have any
guiding rules about how market
categories work, then you might end
up making a huge strategic error.
You might think it’s time for another
mainstream casino brand, a bit like
888. Maybe you think they don’t have
a large enough games library or some
72
iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT/NOV 2018
If you can’t be first
in a category, set up
a new category you
can be first in
Failure is to be expected
and accepted
other feature is missing.
If you think of any marketing
initiative, it’s ultimately a bet. You’re
betting that something is going to
work. Tabcorp made a huge bet on
Sun Bets and had to extract itself
from the deal, losing around £40m
in termination costs. That’s a bet that
obviously went wrong. Why did it go
wrong? In my opinion, it was because
whoever decided to partner with The
Sun made a bunch of assumptions
about the power of that newspaper’s
brand to change player allegiance.
In other words, the category that
we call mainstream sports betting is
locked up by the major
incumbent brands. Had
the decision-makers in this case
understood some of the laws of
marketing, then they would have
realised that mainstream betting was
not the way forward. Instead, Sun
Bets could have been a successful sub-
category brand.
NICK GARNER
is founder of Bitcoin
casino Oshi.io and has
a background in online
marketing and marketing
strategy. He occasionally consults
with igaming brands on marketing
strategy and best-practice planning
for marketing operations.