The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing Violate Them at Your Own Risk

13

The Law of Sacrifice

You have to give up something

in order to get something.

22_13

 

file:///F|/Business/Marketing/22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing.html (46 of 77)4/20/2006 1:41:49 AM

---

file:///F|/Business/Marketing/22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing.html

 

The law of sacrifice is the opposite of the law of line extension. If you want to be successful today, you 

should give something up.

There are three things to sacrifice: product line, target market, and constant change.

First, the product line. Where is it written that the more you have to sell, the more you sell?

The full line is a luxury for a loser. If you want to be successful, you have to reduce your product line, 

not expand it. Take Emery Air Freight. Emery was in the air freight services business. Anything you 

wanted to ship you could ship via Emery. Small packages, large packages, overnight service, delayed 

service.

From a marketing point of view, what did Federal Express do? It concentrated on one service: small 

packages overnight. Today Federal Express is a much bigger company than Emery.

The power of the sacrifice for Federal Express was in being able to put the word overnight in the mind 

of the prospect. When it absolutely, positively had to be there overnight, you would call Federal Express.

Then what did Federal Express do? The company did the same thing Emery did. It threw away its 

overnight position by buying Tiger International’s Flying Tiger cargo line for $880 million. Now 

Federal Express is a worldwide air cargo company without a worldwide position. In just 21 months 

Federal Express lost $1.1 billion in its international operations.

Marketing is a game of mental warfare. It’s a battle of perceptions, not products or services. In the mind 

of the prospect, Federal Express is the overnight company. Federal Express owns the overnight position. 

When the market turned international, Federal Express faced a classic marketing dilemma. Should it try 

to take a domestic name into the international field? Or should it create a new worldwide name? 

Furthermore, how should it deal with DHL, the company that got into the international field first?

It’s bad enough that Federal Express walked away from the “overnight” idea. What’s worse is that it 

didn’t replace the idea with a new one.

Eveready was the long-time leader in batteries. But new technology arrived—as it does in most 

industries. The first technology to change the battery business was the heavy-duty battery. What would 

you call your heavy-duty battery if you had the No. 1 name in batteries? You’d probably call it the 

Eveready heavy-duty battery, which is what Eveready did.

Then the alkaline battery arrived. Again, Eveready called its alkaline battery the Eveready alkaline 

battery. It seemed to make sense.

file:///F|/Business/Marketing/22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing.html (47 of 77)4/20/2006 1:41:49 AM

---

file:///F|/Business/Marketing/22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing.html

Then P.R. Mallory introduced a line of alkaline batteries only. Furthermore, the company gave the line a 

better name: Duracell.

The power of the sacrifice for Duracell was in being able to put the “long-lasting battery” idea in the 

mind of the prospect. Duracell lasts twice as long as Eveready, said the advertising.

Eveready was forced to change the name of its alkaline battery to “the Energizer.” But it was too late. 

Duracell had already become the leader in the battery market.

The world of business is populated by big, highly diversified generalists and small, narrowly focused 

specialists. If line extension and diversification were effective marketing strategies, you’d expect to see 

the generalists riding high. But they’re not. Most of them are in trouble.

The generalist is weak. Take Kraft, for example. Everybody thinks Kraft is a strong brand name. In 

jellies and jams, Kraft has 9 percent of the market. But Smucker’s has 35 percent. Kraft means