The Law of Category is the second of Al Ries and Jack Trout's 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (1993): "If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in." The rule reframes competitive strategy from "win the category" to "name the category" — if no slot exists for the kind of company or product a founder is building, invent one and own its definition.
The principle has since been popularized far outside its original direct-marketing context. 📝Tim Ferriss cites it in 📝Tools of the Titans as a foundational lever and credits his own framing of "lifestyle design" in 📝The 4-Hour Workweek as a deliberate application — a category he could be first in because he was naming it. The condensed version sits behind much of contemporary positioning advice across startup and creator markets.
"In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue." — Thomas L. Friedman