21 thoughts on “10 brand strategy lessons from “The Princess Bride””

  1. Excellent follow up Dennis. Loved all your points. Just last week I was thinking about the importance of #6, Know Your Competiton. No one can rest on their laurels. When MSFT thought it was untouchable, along came Google. When Google thought it was untouchable, along came Facebook (which beat out that other untouchable Social Media site MySpace). Won’t be long before someone will be threatening Facebook’s hegemony too.

    Your blog is a great discovery. Thanks again to Twitter.

  2. Oh my goodness! This is brilliant – I love it! And I agree with Ron – your blog is a great discovery, and I’m glad Ron tweeted about it so I would find it! *grin*

  3. Thanks to both of you DIFFER newbies. Stick around.

    Ron, Re. #6: Good point. I was thinking about the IBM / MS / Google / FB continuum as well, but actually there are dozens of other examples from tech alone. MySpace is probably sitting there wondering “I wonder if (Facebook) is using the same wind we are using.”

    1. Thanks Jessica. Again, props to Ron Dawson for getting my brain moving in the first place. The rest was just a matter of unearthing all those lines that were rattling around in my head (IMDB helped as well).

    1. Thanks Bill. Still pretty new to this blogging stuff so your comments are flattering, but I should confess that this little one-hour post (as a Princess Bride nerd, I didn’t have to do a lot of work to come up with 10 quotes) seems to be taking on a viral(ish) life of its own.

  4. My favourite – courage, audacity, persistence:

    “We’ll never make it out alive”

    “Nonsense. You’re just saying that because no one ever has.”

    Nice post!

  5. I love this movie and my kids love this movie. We often walk around repeating lines from this movie. I never even thought about the points you made, except for the name issue, but now that you’ve made them, they make sense. Thank you.

  6. Hi Dennis,
    This is a great branding article. I work with romance authors (digital content & social media) and since The Princess Bride is one of the great romance movies I used your article for author branding giving you full credit! Clever and well-written brand connection strategy. Thank you.

    1. Thanks Malle. Glad it hit a chord with you – and hopefully with your readers.

      But I wonder: if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what does that make cut-and-paste?

      In the future, please feel free to quote me and comment at length on my blog posts, but check with me before copying my entire article to another blog.

  7. Brilliant movie and excellent analogies that you have pulled from this classic. Thanks for sharing.

    When branding for clients, I guess, we might have to add in the lesson encapsulated in the line: “As you wish..”

    We will lead horses to water and hope they drink! (Now which cup should they drink from…..)

    Cheers! Jess

    1. Thanks Jess. With the massive mountain of response this post has gotten – all right not massive by big time blog standards, but huge for me – I’m working on a follow-up “10 More Brand Strategy Lessons from the Princess Bride.”

      I’ll credit you for “as you wish”.

  8. Our mental health organization, “Strength of Mind” is opening a subclinic of ‘Wellness Coaching’ style, in a separate onsite structure originally conceived as one to supplement the work of pills & psychotherapy in the big house. Now, we know this work may become a flagship robust enterprise. We are realizing how important the new name will be. We’ll take this blog post into the meeting. We love the movie anyway, so what the heck.

    1. Wow, that’s important work, and an inspiring story. Hope the post helps.
      But if you don’t mind me asking, “Strength of Mind” is in itself a powerful cause-oriented name. What is the new Wellness flagship going to be called, or are you developing that after the meeting?

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