The 5 branding principles of Jeff Bezos

Since Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 it has acquired over 100 companies

His legendary business practices have grown the company to $1,500,000,000,000

Bezos has defined 5 key principles that have guaranteed the success of each brand he owns.

Here’s the breakdown of each one.

 

1) Customer obsession

Obsess about your customer’s experience over anything else.

Don’t spend much time thinking about the competition or product.

Be solely focused on the customer experience.

 

2) Passion for invention

Bezos says that customers are always dissatisfied

Even when they think they are happy they want a better way

Customers just don’t know what that way is.

Customer obsession is about so much more than listening.

It’s about inventing on their behalf.

 

3) Think long term

Bezos tells everyone he works with to think in 5 to 7-year timeframes.

Quarterly results that we see now have been defined about 3 years from now.

As soon as you start to think long term what you do and how you spend your time will change.

 

The ability to think long term will help with planning for the future and anticipating events.

Bezos says this ability is not natural.

People must practise thinking long term.

 

4) Accept failure

To invent you need to experiment.

In 2019 Amazon group spent $42.7 billion on research and development.

Go into experiments not knowing the results.

 

Keep your mind open to the possibility of failure.

Success is not linear so experiment as much as you can.

Invention is not disruptive. Customer adoption is disruptive.

 

5) Identify your big ideas

There should only be two or three big ideas in your company

The big ideas in your company should be very easy to identify

You should know what they are.

 

Amazon example

1. Low prices

2. Fast delivery

3. Vast selection

 

You don’t need more than 3 or 4

Big ideas should be obvious.

Change your perspective, zoom out.

Look at the big picture and the big ideas in your brand will be obvious.

 

Big ideas will be stable in time.

10 years from now customers will still like low prices.

Once you have identified your big ideas, work relentlessly to make them better.

 

You will have conviction knowing that the big ideas won’t change.

Keep putting energy and investment into your big ideas and they will pay you dividends 10 years from now.