John Jantsch (00:01.144)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Laura Ries. She’s a globally recognized branding strategist, bestselling author and president of Reiss and Reiss, the firm she runs with her father, legendary positioning pioneer Al Reiss. Laura’s guided Fortune 500 companies and fast growing startups alike on how to win the battle in 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.

Laura Ries (00:37.082)

Well, thanks so much. It’s a pleasure to be here. And to see you again.

John Jantsch (00:40.586)

Likewise. And you know, there are very few people I can say this to, but you know, when I was just getting started, father’s book was very instrumental read for me as well. I’m sure you’ve heard that more than once.

Laura Ries (00:55.45)

and it was a very instrumental book for me as well. It’s what got me here, got me interested in falling in love with positioning. so it’s such a pleasure to have had the chance to work with him for so many years.

John Jantsch (01:09.13)

And as you and I have talked before, my daughter actually is our CEO and has worked with me for 15 years. 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. 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, you know, doesn’t, some of the drama that people are used to, just, we’ve never experienced it as that. I get the sense that you’re probably in that same boat.

Laura Ries (01:48.6)

Yeah, no, you do have that long-term trust and you’re in it for the long haul for your family, you hope. And so that longevity and history and all that you bring into it. But yeah, you do have to love what you do. I think that’s the most important thing. I love positioning. 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.

John Jantsch (02:03.853)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:09.23)

you

John Jantsch (02:15.874)

Yeah, of course you wouldn’t stick around if I wouldn’t think if you loved it. It’s a grind. be. So you got to have some passion for it. So let’s jump right into the book. One of my first questions, I think I know, well, I know the answer to this, but I want you to clarify. How would you differentiate between a strategic enemy and say a competitor?

Laura Ries (02:39.652)

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 pick not other water brands, but

John Jantsch (02:41.506)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:04.663)

Right.

Laura Ries (03:08.634)

Plastic water bottles as the enemy death to plastics is their slogan So 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 and sadly We don’t even recycle much plastic anymore even though they can be so very important message and of course they have

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, for example, Uber. The original name was ubercab.com, if you remember back in the day.

John Jantsch (03:45.449)

funny. No, I actually don’t know that I knew that one.

Laura Ries (03:49.262)

Yeah, no, I didn’t either, but you know, I do my research on these books. if you have a name like Uber cab, 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.

John Jantsch (03:51.502)

Right.

John Jantsch (04:07.661)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:18.124)

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, whatever, you know, work that you get. And as I listened to you to this, it’s probably in some ways the enemy can just be a problem that your ideal client is facing. Right.

Laura Ries (04:36.314)

Absolutely. 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, yeah, two things, either a problem that you’re going to solve or just the alternative. There’s not just one way to do something. mean, think about mouthwash. Listerine, it’s medicine breath is what Scope said because they were selling good tasting mouthwash. But, know, Listerine, the fact that taste you hate twice a day, I mean, that

John Jantsch (04:40.526)

Right.

Laura Ries (05:04.505)

Talk to the efficacy. 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? And there’s always 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.

John Jantsch (05:34.904)

So it’s, it’s all, well, I shouldn’t say it almost. is, I mean, you’re 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? I mean, not necessarily make it up, but like without it, you even go as far as what was your statement or your brands without enemies or brands without energy that, that, that we actually need to go find this thing, right?

Laura Ries (05:49.818)

That’s right.

Laura Ries (05:57.518)

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. 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. What did Southwest do? They said no to first class being the coach class only.

John Jantsch (06:16.92)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (06:26.99)

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, companies too often get in trouble because

John Jantsch (06:45.006)

You

Laura Ries (06:56.332)

What is Southwest doing today? They’re adding first class and premium seating. All of that is going to undermine the bags don’t fly. And here’s the thing, seat assignments, I’m all for. That’s going to 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.

John Jantsch (06:58.647)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:02.254)

Charging for bags.

Laura Ries (07:21.71)

That has an operational efficiency too, because if the bags fly free, people will check them. And then you could 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.

John Jantsch (07:26.606)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:40.952)

So sounds like I hear you saying that really the first step too is that as you said, 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?

Laura Ries (07:55.801)

Absolutely.

That’s right. Yeah, it’s a balance between knowing who you are, what you can say no to. But at the end of the day, focus has always been the key critical element of positioning itself. And the enemy is line extension, going in too many directions, diluting what your brand is. And when companies do focus, then they can make use of that strategic enemy. And it’s creating the contrast of the peak

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 always shorten your name because edible today has a very different connotation. That’s not what they’re selling. There you go. That’s not what they’re selling.

John Jantsch (08:48.11)

I live in Colorado and it’s, you know, it’s…

Laura Ries (08:53.418)

They are selling edible fruit arrangements, which has a fantastic strategic enemy. Why buy flowers that will die, right? When you can send a delicious edible bouquet. But edible arrangements as a name is very, 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, people love a Tesla. No, they don’t love the Tesla brand. It’s the category that they dominate, which is EV electric vehicles, the category that is booming right now. And people still buy them despite what they think of Elon Musk and all of his shenanigans. But very strong brand that did absolutely do many of the things we preach about, being first in 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 and they ignored it for many, 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 after 10 years, it was a hundred million dollars and they woke up and said, oops,

But when they competed late, you know, it was too late to the game. 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.

John Jantsch (10:21.816)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:32.878)

A lot of those big companies just go out and buy the competition that’s nipping at their heels.

Laura Ries (10:38.874)

Well, that’s not a bad idea. 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 could believe that. But they have made, you know, they put a stake into Monster, which is the only brand that has successfully competed against Red Bull. And today, it’s 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 at a 16 ounce can. Now, is that better? Who knows? It’s different.

John Jantsch (10:46.54)

Ha ha.

John Jantsch (11:04.28)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (11:06.81)

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 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 They’re hot in the energy drink market by not going the masculine male approach as you know 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.

John Jantsch (11:49.166)

So we’re talking about big brands essentially right now, but you’ve developed a framework that is really quarter the book. Do you want to kind of walk us through some of the steps? And like, have you walked into a company and let’s put the big brands aside? You walked into a company that is kind of trying to make their way now and trying to, know, what are kind of some of the steps you would take somebody through? And again, obviously I didn’t give you a type of company or anything, but typically.

Laura Ries (12:14.186)

No, 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, something that the big companies usually don’t have. For example, in the moist toilet paper market, the early pioneers were, know, cottonel fresh wipes, which never really went anywhere because it had a, you

It was cottonel, Kleenex, fresh wipes, something or other. They 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, 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,

John Jantsch (12:51.982)

Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Ries (13:12.974)

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 is also flushable and environmentally friendly? And 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

John Jantsch (13:36.034)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura Ries (13:42.97)

calling out an enemy. I 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. And, you know, going in with entrepreneurs, it is so exciting because you can really take on the big guys.

John Jantsch (13:50.03)

Right, right. Yeah

John Jantsch (14:08.835)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (14:09.058)

You don’t have to be a big guy because 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. But they’re kind of given the short shaft to the merchant. So, know, Shopify is the merchant hero. They’re setting it up so merchants can have their own stores.

John Jantsch (14:26.7)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Laura Ries (14:37.976)

making it totally seamless, easy to do, giving them all the tools, support they need, and they’ve been a very strong competitor to helping companies sell their goods on the internet.

John Jantsch (14:48.616)

And of course their connected network has now made them even more powerful.

Laura Ries (14:52.186)

It took time, literally it was just a bunch of guys who tried to sell their own website and said, instead of, was it surfing stuff? I can’t remember. But instead of selling this, mean, they gave that up quick and said, we’re just gonna sell the software, the backbone of this. And they added incrementally all the other things and bells and whistles that went along with it. But it’s that key one idea.

John Jantsch (14:56.77)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:07.308)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura Ries (15:16.762)

Airbnb was the same way. mean, it was, you know, a bunch of guys living in San Francisco that said, wait a minute, you know, it 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 they are taking on hotels in a big way.

John Jantsch (15:35.15)

funny.

John Jantsch (15:40.686)

Oh yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. 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 and things to, get into that business. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Ries (15:53.302)

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. Instead of thinking about how can we copy Airbnb, how can we make hotels a better deal? And celebrate what is a very nice experience in a hotel.

John Jantsch (16:09.581)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:13.102)

Sure.

Yeah, yeah,

Laura Ries (16:22.66)

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. Give 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, big success at the turn of the century.

John Jantsch (16:44.386)

Yep.

Laura Ries (16:46.87)

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, they launched White Claw.

John Jantsch (17:00.194)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (17:15.994)

the first hard seltzer and this is the typhoon of 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, that again, naming the category is incredibly important. Zima, mean, you’re as old as I am, you know it, remember Zima, they didn’t know what it was. What was it?

John Jantsch (17:16.035)

Mm.

John Jantsch (17:26.626)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:35.884)

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do.

Laura Ries (17:41.562)

I mean, it was similar to, you know, again, what White Claw is selling, but, 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. And that was one of the experiences of the Zemas.

John Jantsch (17:44.77)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (17:57.72)

Yeah, that seltzer category is probably booming like beer, my craft beer was at one point.

Laura Ries (18:04.428)

Absolutely. And not only that, there’s a huge, there’s always opportunity out there, which is what makes marketing and business and entrepreneur 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. What fun is that? But anyway, there’s a big trend into drinking less. And 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.

John Jantsch (18:39.918)

You

Laura Ries (18:47.466)

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. 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. In fact, one of the competitions, they beat beer with alcohol. And they have just a great way of talking about it.

John Jantsch (18:59.159)

Mm-hmm, right.

John Jantsch (19:05.998)

Mmm.

John Jantsch (19:11.426)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (19:16.442)

pointing out that enemy which is, know, why bother with the alcohol? Why not live for a better tomorrow?

John Jantsch (19:21.91)

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? 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. didn’t has their brush, probably. So I think they kind of…

Laura Ries (19:29.338)

That’s right. Yeah.

Laura Ries (19:37.562)

No. Yeah, not being a line extension and not trying to look like a beer. The 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, 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? mean, athletic lifestyles, you can’t bring gas, a glass bottle on a camping trip or a boat. need the can. And the can in bright pastel colors was a distinctive difference that also communicated how different they were than all the other products.

John Jantsch (20:05.752)

Right, right, yeah.

John Jantsch (20:16.012)

Yeah. So I want to end with a, know, because I think a lot of people listening right now are getting very fired up about their who, how they’re going to go out there and create their enemy. What’s the risk of creating you call foe enemies? I mean, just kind of like making them up.

Laura Ries (20:23.322)

I hope so.

Laura Ries (20:31.802)

you can’t make them up. Of course they do. course they… No, 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.

John Jantsch (20:33.166)

But certainly people try, right? I mean, it’s like, it’s like, here’s our rivalry, but it’s like, they really? Yeah, yeah.

Laura Ries (20:53.562)

And that’s an instantly visible difference, but they promote that as you know, they’re they’re 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. But yeah, that absolutely it has to be not just you know, claiming a boogeyman out there as the enemy but something that that is real. That’s a tangible problem a tangible enemy and there’s always more than ways

John Jantsch (20:53.964)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (21:18.358)

more than one way to do something. 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 companies focus on producing very high quality and also, you know, the ease of not over, you know, there’s only 4,000 items. It really makes it much easier to choose when there’s

John Jantsch (21:33.88)

Yeah.

Laura Ries (21:46.82)

fewer things to choose from.

John Jantsch (21:48.046)

That’s funny because, 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.

Laura Ries (21:54.901)

See you.

Laura Ries (21:58.97)

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 the bulk kind of Costco They 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

John Jantsch (22:05.068)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:27.062)

I did love a good blue light special though. You got to admit that was amazing.

Laura Ries (22:29.018)

It was a visual idea. See, if you can give your strategy some way to visualize it, it makes it much more powerful. 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. what a, know, using metaphors like that are a great way to do branding.

John Jantsch (22:41.112)

Right?

John Jantsch (22:47.288)

Yep. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:55.382)

Awesome. 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?

Laura Ries (23:01.274)

Absolutely. Well, of course you can visit us online at reese.com and that’s r i e s dot 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 like companies are coming in and I give them really great advice. So check out those videos, check out my book and let’s do positioning together and nail those strategic enemies.

John Jantsch (23:23.118)

You

John Jantsch (23:34.211)

Well, again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you on these days soon out there on the road.

Laura Ries (23:38.852)

Absolutely.