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The 5 Laws of Branding That’ll Never Die

How many of Al and Laura Ries’ rules from 1998 still hold up?

Dave Smurthwaite
Better Marketing
Published in
8 min readMay 5, 2020

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Photo by Tandem X Visuals on Unsplash

Twenty-two years ago, marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries published “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.” At the time, only 147 million people were connected to the internet, and Google was just a startup.

Today 59% of the world’s population browse (4.3 billion users) and are online almost seven hours per day.

With so much having changed, how immutable can rules from 1998 really be?

It turns out, there’s a surprising number that are either still partially or completely relevant. Five core truths, however, stand out as both timeless and timely for marketers today.

Let’s take a quick glance at each of the 22 laws to get a taste for which are core to today’s marketing environment, which have changed, and which have been thrown out like an America Online hard disk:

Graphic provided by author

The Kindas

Let’s begin with brief definitions of each of the laws that have either changed over time or are no longer timely for today’s marketers.

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Better Marketing
Better Marketing

Published in Better Marketing

A publication by and for marketers. We publish marketing inspiration, case studies, career advice, tutorials, industry news, and more.

Dave Smurthwaite
Dave Smurthwaite

Written by Dave Smurthwaite

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