---
title: "Major Marketing Mistakes Managers Often Make"
description: "Management focuses on facts, marketing focuses on perceptions. Management believes changing reality changes perceptions, but marketing knows changing perceptions is the hardest task. The key is to build a brand in the mind, not just improve products."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-04-02"
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# Major Marketing Mistakes Managers Often Make

> Management focuses on facts, marketing focuses on perceptions. Management believes changing reality changes perceptions, but marketing knows changing perceptions is the hardest task. The key is to build a brand in the mind, not just improve products.

1. Management focuses on facts, marketing focuses on perceptions
Management focuses on facts and data, and on reality. Management certainly understands the importance of perceptions, but the problem is that they think perceptions are a reflection of reality, and that changing reality will correspondingly change perceptions.
Marketing disagrees. Changing facts is not difficult, but changing perceptions is almost the hardest job in the world.
Walmart's image of everyday low prices is deeply ingrained, but Walmart doesn't want to be known for selling only cheap goods. They opened offices on Fifth Avenue, held fashion shows in New York, and advertised in Vogue magazine to create an "upscale" image. What was the result? A complete failure!
2. Management focuses on products, marketing focuses on brands
Is nothing more important than the product? This is typical left-brain management thinking. In car showrooms, compare Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan products. What conclusion can you draw? Even experts in the automotive industry find it hard to point out obvious quality differences. Of course, obvious quality differences do exist, but not in the products; they exist in the minds of buyers.
Ries sharply points out that better products are basically similar to competitors' products, just "better" in some measurable aspects. The differences consumers can perceive are created by the brand itself.
"Perceptions guide facts." Starbucks tastes better because consumers think Starbucks is better.
3. Management owns brands, marketing owns categories
The brand is just the tip of the iceberg; the category is the iceberg itself. The size and depth of the iceberg determine the value of the brand. Dominating a category is the true goal of a marketing plan. Many big companies are busy polishing their brands, while entrepreneurs and pioneers are looking for ways to create categories. Big companies think in terms of brands; entrepreneurs think in terms of categories.
When an iceberg begins to melt, left-brain managers try to save the brand. This is logical but not a good strategy. It's better to look around for newly formed icebergs.
4. Management demands better products, marketing demands different products
Management wants to produce better products with higher efficiency and lower costs. This is not wrong, but it's not the way a company takes market leadership. Dell became the leading brand in personal computers not because its products were better than IBM's, but because it was different; Dell replaced traditional retail with direct sales.
In business history, few second-place brands have overtaken leaders by being "better," such as Burger King, Pepsi, and MasterCard versus McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Visa. Leaders do not easily lose their leading position.
5. Management advocates full product lines, marketing advocates narrow product lines
Why do marketers advocate narrow product lines? Isn't a full range of products and services better? Because selling is the second step in marketing; the first step is building a brand in the consumer's mind. However, a full product line is hard to establish in the mind.
The primary goal of marketing is to dominate a category.
6. Management leans toward brand expansion, marketing leans toward brand contraction
"Growth" is the primary goal of every manager, but marketers don't see it that way. If the goal is to increase profits, not just sales, then companies need contraction rather than expansion. Marketers believe that brand extension works when competition is weak or nonexistent. But once competition is fierce, brand extension is a shortcut to disaster.
7. Management strives to be first to market, marketing strives to be first in the mind
The world's first Pod was not introduced by Apple, but the first entrant had an awkward name: Nomad Jukebox, and also made the mistake of line extension. The iPod became the first Pod in the consumer's mind. Most managers only remember the first half of this marketing rule: the importance of being first. But they ignore the second half: be first in the mind, not first in the market.
Changing minds takes a long time; marketing itself can be called a "practical psychology."
8. Management expects "explosive" brand launches, marketing expects slow brand building
Among many left-brain managers, there is a "rocket" myth: new brands must take off in the short term, like a big bang. Therefore, companies must use all resources to trigger this "big bang." But this is not the case. The more revolutionary a concept, the longer it takes for the market to accept it. Ordinary products or concepts may take off quickly, but revolutionary products do not.
Moreover, because revolutionary products take off slowly, managers often think the market is small. If managers wait for a new category to develop into a large market before entering, it's already too late.
9. Management targets the market center, marketing targets the market ends
Many big companies in various industries target the market center. The Big Three American automakers have been losing money; they have neither strong low-end brands nor strong high-end brands. They are only strong in the mid-range market, but the situation is deteriorating because every industry tends to split into two separate industries: one at the high end and one at the low end.
10. Management wants to own all words, marketing wants to own a single word
What is a Volvo? A safe car. This is the perception of many consumers, but many brands have not established such a perception in consumers' minds; the brand image is very vague. Worse, many managers don't even try to establish such a perception. Management generally believes that customers consider multiple factors when buying "big-ticket" items like cars, such as driving performance, comfort, power, style, maintenance, etc. This is logical, but it's hard to execute. Can you implant all these into the consumer's mind? If a brand can implant one word or concept into the consumer's mind, it's already lucky.
11. Management uses abstract language, marketing uses visual imagery
Left-brain managers love abstract elements: "in sync with world business," "quality service," "reliable performance"... Do such expressions have any practical meaning? Right-brain marketers want more direct expressions: "overnight delivery," "two rooms for the price of one"... To build a brand, you need a nail and a hammer. The verbal expression is the nail, and the visual image is the hammer. To build a strong brand, you need both.
12. Management prefers single brands, marketing prefers multiple brands
In this era of information overload and limited consumer attention, why not put all sales and marketing resources into one brand? Some successful companies do this: GE, Microsoft, IBM. However, when these companies try to build a new product or service separate from their core business, they suffer significant losses:
For example, Microsoft and internet search, and domestic brands like 霸王凉茶... On the other hand, many highly successful companies use multiple brands—Procter & Gamble is a typical example.
13. Management values good ideas, marketing values credibility
Marketing is not about good ideas; it's about consistency and credibility. Many managers make decisions based on the personal impact of an idea, like "I like it" or "I don't like this." Often the "surprise" factor tips the scales: "I never thought of this."
Users accept or reject a new idea not only based on its substance but also on whether it matches their perception of the brand. This affects how people accept new ideas. Credibility, demonstrated through trust, is the foundation of building a brand.
Ries points out that the three most important rules of advertising used to be: repetition, repetition, repetition, to reinforce and strengthen brand perception; today, the most important rules seem to be: good ideas, novelty, and flashiness.
14. Management endorses compound brands, marketing endorses single brands
Many company executives put the corporate name on all product brand names. For example, a few years ago, Taster's Choice surpassed Maxim to become the leading brand of freeze-dried instant coffee in the U.S. market; a good name played an important role. In fact, Nestlé management wanted to name the product "Nescafe Gold," trying to leverage Nestlé's brand strength as the world's largest seller of instant coffee.
But a few years later, the managers at Nestlé headquarters finally insisted on their own view; starting in 2003, they officially changed "Taster's Choice" to "Nestlé Taster's Choice." But customers wouldn't call it that; it's too long and cumbersome, so customers still call it "Taster's Choice." The compound brand strategy just adds a confusing factor.
In Ries's view, strong brands are those that represent themselves, without any labeling from the company or main brand. If Nestlé acquired Red Bull, should Red Bull be renamed "Nestlé Red Bull"? In the marketing view, that would be silly.
Every new category is an opportunity to build a new brand, but many companies still choose to use the well-known corporate brand, missing the golden opportunity to create a new brand. For example, if Sony wanted Mavica to become a brand representing digital cameras, it should not have carried the Sony name when launched; it should not have been Sony Mavica.
The compound brand strategy is like a seesaw: if one brand goes up, the other goes down. From another perspective, as a brand, Sony is strong, but as a company, it's terrible. In the past 10 years (as of the book's writing), Sony's net profit margin was only 1%.
15. Management expects continuous growth, marketing expects market maturity
A mature brand (meaning the brand, not the company) will eventually reach an optimal point in its development, after which sales growth only comes from population growth and inflation. If McDonald's has reached its optimal sales level, how should McDonald's marketing strategy adjust? Should McDonald's abandon obligatory growth? Of course not. It can choose to launch new brands and repeat the same cycle: start—accumulate growth—mature. Imagine if Procter & Gamble had stuck to soap, how far would it have developed today?
Does the increasing variety of items on McDonald's menu make sense? It makes sense to management, but not to marketing. If you want to build a dominant brand, you need to represent something in the mind. When the menu has more and more items, consumers no longer know what McDonald's stands for.
16. Management tends to kill new categories, marketing tends to create new categories
The creator of a new category is usually a company in its early stages or a smaller company, hoping to compete with larger companies by launching a new brand that can dominate a new category.
When Duracell alkaline batteries were introduced in the U.S., the battery market was dominated by Eveready's carbon-zinc batteries. Alkaline batteries last twice as long as carbon-zinc batteries. Eveready's management wanted "electrical batteries" to remain in one category, including alkaline, carbon-zinc, and other products. As the leader, Eveready wanted to dominate the category. But that was impossible. Under Duracell's marketing influence, consumers recognized the difference between the two categories, and alkaline batteries were more durable, so Duracell dominated the new category. When Eveready's management finally realized it couldn't kill the new category, they quickly launched their own alkaline battery brand: Energizer, but it was too late. Money and creativity cannot make up for lost time.
But sometimes the category creator wins, and sometimes the category killer wins. No one can predict the future; whether a new category will develop into an independent category is hard to determine early on. If you want to kill a new category, first ensure your brand is the leading brand in the existing category.
For brands and categories, a useful analytical method is to compare the mind to a pigeon loft. The pigeonholes are categories, and the pigeons are brands. But not every pigeonhole has a pigeon. Logically, "high-priced Korean cars" is a category, but there is no high-priced Korean car brand. Hyundai's $40,000 Hyundai Genesis—is it a high-priced car or a low-priced car? If it's a high-priced car, it doesn't fit the "Hyundai" pigeonhole, which is for low-priced cars. That is, the "Hyundai" brand is not suitable for high-end cars. To enter the high-end market, Hyundai should launch a new brand.
17. Management wants communication, marketing wants positioning
Advertising is positioning; the best advertising communicates the essence of the brand. Although most companies try to cram all marketing messages into the minds of potential customers, communicating information that is not necessary is counterproductive and weakens the brand. Studying many advertising slogans, you'll find that many brands claim to be better than competitors, but most brands do not position themselves better.
18. Management wants lifelong customer loyalty, marketing welcomes periodic customer shifts
A young woman might buy clothes at Gap, but as she ages, she might choose Macy's. Companies should not just try to gain more territory; by continuously cultivating their own soil, they can build a better brand. Let your customers leave you; let them move up the ladder of life.
In some cases, brands ignore the ladder of life and try to hold onto customers tightly, often at great cost. Levi's has been declining for years; one problem is that it's a brand for older people, and no kid wants to wear the same brand as their parents. "We should limit Levi's waist size to no more than 32 inches, and let those old folks with big butts go around wearing Wrangler's," Ries humorously wrote in the book.
19. Management loves coupons and promotions, marketing hates them
Cigarettes, marijuana, and coupons—all three are addictive. Marketing success is inversely proportional to promotional offers. Management sees coupons as a strategy; marketing sees coupons as only a support. Coupons damage both the brand and sales. Promotions are like smoking marijuana: short-term excitement followed by long-term lethargy.
20. Management tries to imitate competitors, marketing wants to be the opposite
Everyone has played rock-paper-scissors. In this game, what is the best strategy? The answer is obvious: it depends on what the opponent will play. In marketing, the best strategy also depends on what your competitors are using. Management seems to have difficulty thinking this way; they say, "We just need to use the same strategy and do it better than the competitor." Marketers look for opportunities to be the opposite of competitors, not to imitate them.
Marketers know it's hard to have a feel for any new idea. You first need to understand marketing laws like "opposition," and then you can have a feel for them. Montblanc pens are all fat; its main competitor Cross focuses on slim pens. Traditional wedding and engagement rings are gold, so Scott Kay focused on platinum jewelry and became the best-selling jewelry brand in the U.S.
21. Management is reluctant to change brand names, marketing welcomes new names
"In the positioning era, the most important marketing decision you can make is what to name your product." Negative perceptions are always linked to bad names. Perceptions of names lead to perceptions of products, services, and prices. If Ralph Lifshitz had insisted on keeping his name, what would he have achieved today? Fortunately, he wisely changed his name to Ralph Lauren. Sometimes management accepts name changes, but they love initials and abbreviations. In "Positioning," Ries and Trout proposed the concept of the "no-name trap." At that time (1981), there were 27 "no-name companies" in the Fortune 500. Management always thinks shorter is better. If your brand is already famous, you can use initials as an abbreviation, but if your brand is not yet famous, using only letters will only push it further from fame. The name NXP only conveys one thing: what do these letters stand for?
22. Management loves innovation, marketing believes one is enough
Innovation is not a marketing strategy. Companies that rely on a continuous stream of innovative products inevitably fall into trouble later. Peter Drucker once said: "A business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation." Al Ries believes: "A company has only one basic function: to create a brand that can dominate a category." Taking the automotive industry as an example, the key to building a strong car brand is not innovation but focus. Innovation that deviates from the core positioning can even damage the brand. Innovations like New Coke almost destroyed the brand. The secret to building a brand lies in knowing what to give up, not in innovation. Companies should use funds for innovation to create new brands, rather than hoping to repair or save existing brands through innovation.
23. Management loves multimedia, marketing opposes it
Playboy started as a magazine, but it has long expanded its brand to clubs, casinos, books, audio-visual products, cable channels, calendars, clothing, condoms, cigarettes, cola, and more. In 1971, Playboy's stock was worth $23.50 per share; now it's $1.92. Playboy fell into the trap of brand line extension. Every print media thinks it should expand its brand to the internet to succeed; on the contrary, it should stay put and launch a new brand in the new online field.
24. Management focuses on the short term, marketing focuses on the long term
For brands, management thinks: "Put all efforts into the core brand, no matter where it extends." This may work in the short term, but not in the long term. Marketers know that marketing is a long-term proposition; new strategies take years to bear fruit.
25. Management relies on common sense, marketing relies on intuition
When managers encounter legal or accounting issues, they seek help from lawyers and accountants and accept their opinions without exception. But when managers encounter marketing problems, they turn to marketers and say: "We'll do it my way; marketing is just a matter of common sense." When it comes to common sense, no one knows more than the CEO, right? "Common sense" is the insurmountable gap between management and marketing.
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