BE PERSISTENT AND WORK HARD Building Your Brand.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)

Byline: Cord Cooper

5 Companies that succeed in the long run know the secret of branding -- setting their products apart in customers' minds.

Firms that turn ho-hum brands into white-hot sellers use proven guidelines, business strategists Al and Laura Ries explain in "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding."

Those principles include:

** The law of singularity. A successful brand is more than a product. It's an idea or image that customers link to the product.

Chevrolet started out as a family economy car, but gradually turned into a "large, small, cheap, expensive car or truck," the authors noted. Other brands have also been watered down.

"What's a Miller?" they asked. "A regular, light, draft, cheap, expensive beer. What's a Panasonic? At one point in time, Panasonic was a computer, computer printer, facsimile machine, scanner, telephone, TV set and copier, among other things."