Seemingly every company in the space seemed to be breaking one of the supposed fundamental, ‘immutable’ laws of marketing as laid out by Ries and Trout’s seminal 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

In their book they tout the ‘law of focus’ and ‘the law of line extension’.

In short, the law of focus and the law of line extension say that while there is irresistible pressure to extend the equity of a brand through “line extensions”, that proper branding focuses the brand on one word or word phrase and works to own that (key)word phrase in the prospects mind.

In the face of this logical argument, I’m struck by the myriad of products that each of the successful skin care and beauty lines has produced. L’Oreal, Clarins, Este Lauder, Clarins…basically, all of them. Even the old standby, single product, Vaseline couldn’t resist taking it’s petroleum jelly and extending it into a line of lotions and skin care.

So if it’s such an ill-fated, short term strategy, why is every brand under the sun doing it and getting away with it?

The only reason I can imagine is that it is such a highly fragmented market of bogus claims, smoke, mirrors, and vanity, that it becomes very difficult to get a foothold in the prospects mind, much less beauty counter shelf space. If a store is going to dedicate shelf space to a brand they almost *demand* that the company create more skus so that the consumer will drive the average ticket price up.

I know there are probably more forces at work here that I don’t quite understand, so if you have any insight, sound off! I’ll give you a dofollow link and you too can join the legions of entrepreneurs in the beauty market with more skus than employees!