Contents:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing No Longer Apply

So, instead of the marketing problem being the fact that no one knows you the small fish in the big pond , it becomes the fact that no one knows your pond in which you are the big, or perhaps the only, fish. Which is the harder marketing problem? Or that JetBlue was a low cost luxury airline? This law is consistent with modern consumers because success in marketing is about when, and if, they remember you; not when you put products and services into the marketplace.

Today, people will become aware of you when a friend tells them about you. People will remember you if you consistently deliver great products and services. The Law of Perception — Marketing is not a battle of products, but a battle of perceptions. Marketing can, and should, be a battle of the products. The products that can leverage feedback from actual customers and incorporate relevant innovations faster will win. So, the battle of lasting perceptions is only won by winning the battle of products, and doing so consistently.

But only in the scenario where the ownership of the word is earned through consistent brand stewardship, backed up by awesome products or services. And the word is usually not the word advertisers choose it to be, but rather what the consumer thinks it is. Each individual consumer may have his or her own word for it. To one, Starbucks may be great coffee. Even the most beloved brands may mean different things to different people. To some, Apple may be great design; to another, easy-to-use. It has to be earned like the way Zappos did, by doing and not just saying.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing No Longer Apply

Because it was actually better. When Bing first came out, an exact phrase search in quotes yielded more results than the same search without quotes; which is wrong. Many tried it, and then never used it again. The Law of the Ladder — The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder. In rental cars, the rungs are Hertz, Avis, and National. Avis Rent-a-Car did this by admitting, "We're second place - but we try harder. Ragu pasta sauce did this by winning the word "thicker," which differentiates them from the market leader, Prego.

A very good book for understanding basic principles of how marketing needs to go beyond simply saying why your product is the best. Oct 18, Yevgeniy Brikman rated it liked it. This book is a good overview of basic marketing principles, but the so-called "immutable laws" are neither laws nor immutable. They are, at best, rules of thumb that often change and contradict each other. The book itself contains plenty of examples of this!

Moreover, the book is dated. They talk extensively about how essential it is to be first in the market "Law of Leadership" , but there are a huge number of modern examples that became wildly successful despite violating this "law", including Google not the first search engine , Facebook not the first social network , LinkedIn not the first professional network or job site , and many others.

An even bigger problem with this book is that it's observational and not predictive. Whereas laws of science allow you to predict what will happen in the future e.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk by Al Ries.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk.
Related Articles;

The authors try to determine cause and effect from these past events, but correlation does not imply causation. For example, the book talks about IBM being wildly profitable while they focused on one business line and then barely surviving after starting to work on multiple business lines. But the world isn't static. IBM could've started to struggle for dozens of other reasons: All that said, this book is still valuable as a collection of interesting marketing case studies and as a way to get into the mind of a marketer.

Some of the useful ideas you'll find: For example, in the US, Honda is seen as a car maker, whereas in Japan, it's seen as a motorcycle maker, even though it's the same company with the same products. You can get there by dominating an existing category Candor can be disarming.

People are naturally suspicious of anyone praising themselves, but if you admit a negative, most people a automatically assume you're telling the truth, b assume if you're willing to talk about a weakness, then you must have some amazing strengths, c reflexively forgive you and become more open to the rest of your message. For example, if you make cars that compete with Volvo, marketing around "safety" won't be as effective as marketing around "speed" or "fun" or "elegant design".

I recommend skimming the book, and instead of accepting the authors' interpretation of events and assuming they are teaching you immutable laws, file away these ideas as facets you should consider when developing a marketing strategy. I suppose it would be more accurate to call this book "22 rules of thumb about marketing," but I'm sure that would violate one of their marketing laws As always, I saved a few of my favorite quotes from the book: Try to be different. Apr 05, Melissa rated it it was ok Shelves: The usual business book They violated their title in the first chapter I read this book because another business author I like recommended it and because I am currently writing a class on marketing and wanted to use it for research.

I want to be careful here. When writing a review for a book I don't like I want to keep in mind that I am talking about something that people created. I do NOT want to write anything that I would not say to the authors' faces if they were standing right in front of me.

This is difficult in a way because I really, REALLY didn't I read this book because another business author I like recommended it and because I am currently writing a class on marketing and wanted to use it for research. The book struck me as being a manual on how to manipulate others written by masters of the craft.

The book is woefully out-of-date as well and many of the author's examples are no longer relevant. I get that the majority of the "laws" they espouse in the book are still relevant, but I don't know if I could, in good conscience, use many of them. In one part of the book the authors recommend that you choose a product differentiator and then make people believe that this aspect of your product is something that they desperately need.

Even when they don't. But knowing something and having it shoved in your face in all its ugliness are two different things. If anything, this book drove home the truth of the sinfulness of man for me. Not just because of the things these men were recommending but also because of my response.

Al Ries, Jack Trout

This is a summary of ideas from the book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Normal text is my summary. Text in italic is my Law 5 ( law of focus). The most powerful concept in marketing is. Chapter 5: The Law Of Focus. The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind. Not a complicated word, or an.

Here I was, reading the book and feeling disgusted and then I started feeling very smug that I was so much more moral than the authors. But it is human. And maybe that can be said about the book too. Feb 24, Saeed rated it really liked it Shelves: May 19, Umar Ghumman rated it it was amazing.

Wissenschaft der Logik — Band 2 (German Edition)!
El diablo mundo (Spanish Edition).
Death and a Maiden: Infanticide and the Tragical History of Grethe Schmidt.

I love this book. The laws are still applicable and will be applicable 25 years from now. May 08, Tiffany Reisz rated it really liked it. Dated but very interesting and thought-provoking.

Dec 19, Kirtida Gautam rated it really liked it Shelves: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a great book. It's very small and easy to read.

The chapters start with words of wisdom. Some of them are counter intuitive and makes complete sense. Few Quotes that I liked. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of speak up on you. Capturing the imagination of the public is not the same as revolutionizing a market. Jul 10, Medhat Ramadan rated it liked it Shelves: Jul 16, Ahmad Abugosh rated it it was ok.

So many people recommend that I read this book, so I finally gave it a shot. At first I thought it was amazing and lived up to the hype, law of leadership, cool, law of perception, even better! I loved how he got psychological about it and talks about how people perceive brands. Where he began to lose me however, was everything that had to do with anything that happened in the last 20 years.

I realize this book was written in the early 90's but some of the things he mentioned have been proved wr So many people recommend that I read this book, so I finally gave it a shot. I realize this book was written in the early 90's but some of the things he mentioned have been proved wrong many times. He gets very cynical towards the end. It just seemed out of place, and silly. Obviously you have advantages if you already have money or get married into it.

How does that help us? Also, he mentioned that products always sneak up on you at night and catch on in the back of the paper but never on the front page, but that's not really true all of the time look at the unveiling of any Apple product or more recently Tesla. True that is easier, but there are countless startups that have made it by bootstrapping or seeking angel investment.

Subscribe to the latest news & insights

It's also worth noting that since this book was written, the entire marketing scene changed , since Seth Godin's permission marketing, to the modern day highly analyzed digital targeting we have. All in all, the book is great to give you a base on how to think about marketing and human emotions, but in terms of practice, is severely outdated. Mar 14, Stephanie Li rated it did not like it. Received this year-old book for my 23rd birthday and wanted to like it but it was so frustrating. Here are just a couple reasons: Sep 18, Dexter Zhuang rated it liked it. I'm not sure how immutable these laws really are, but many of them are pretty interesting to read.

I think the biggest takeaways for me from Al Ries and Jack Trout are that 1 you should always strive to be 1 in your category in peoples' minds 2 if you're not 1, differentiate yourself completely from the 1 and occupy your niche 3 be cautious about moving into other categories of mindshare at the risk of losing hold of your currently dominated category. The key assumption I think made in this I'm not sure how immutable these laws really are, but many of them are pretty interesting to read.

The key assumption I think made in this book that I'm confident has changed is the way that people learn about products. In the world of the 90's, people learned about products through TV, print, and other forms of media where they would then have to go into a store and make a cognitive decision to purchase the product. However, in the modern Internet business world, your product is discoverable through referrals, world of mouth, search, etc. As a result, the way that companies can get mindshare for their products today is through getting people to commit time to trying their product in the first place and give them a positive experience as soon as possible.

I found this book practical and interesting, except for the last law where authors stressed the importance of money in Marketing, I mean, what happened with new wave of startups recently proved that money doesn't matter that much in marketing. Aug 04, Ahmad El shazly rated it it was amazing. For a beginner in the marketing field, I feel so lucky to start with this book. Nov 05, Carlos Pohle rated it liked it. Some really good points made, but packed full with hindsight biases.

Mar 08, Emir Duquela rated it it was amazing. Me han recomendado varios libros del autor, tengo entendido que TODOS son excelente y brindan un conocimiento necesario para el crecimiento. Pienso utilizar este libro como referencia futura para cada uno de mis proyectos. Jul 14, Andrew rated it really liked it Shelves: A very short book on marketing principles with a few examples. The authors need to consult their thesaurus, their laws presented are not laws nor are they immutable. This book could push to 5 stars if they put more data behind their claims.

Here are my favorite principles presented: Be first, not better Category: Make a new category if you do not fit in existing categories. Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products. Every market is a two-horse race. Succes A very short book on marketing principles with a few examples.

Success leads to arrogance and then failure. Successful programs are built on trends. Jan 28, John rated it really liked it Shelves: Pretty good, it was a fast listen. Prioritized is because Tim Ferriss pumped it way back. It's 22 steps of mind bending. The instances of real case scenarios is very well explained and would surprise the general perception of the reader. Apr 10, Ricardo rated it really liked it. It has some outdated information and others things didn't come true, but overall the book is solid.

It gives you great insides how to approach marketing. One thing is that it says that is hard or impossible to predict the future, but the book does try that in a few occasions. May 04, Tobias Nervik rated it liked it. Mar 22, Ramneesh Singla rated it liked it. Sep 14, Inna Zaichenko rated it really liked it.