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Summary: A book focuses on "Positioning"!
Review: This book mainly talks about "Positioning". How to position your product so that you can own a place in customer mind? To own a simple word in the prospect's mind that is not used by other companies, to give up some something, to find an opposite and effective attribute¡K¡K The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing will give you a more detailed answer!If you violate these 22 laws, your company will have to bear the risk! Why? As the laws are written based on the concept of "Positioning", if you cannot position your product well, much money will be wasted on irrelevant areas. There are many important decisions such as pricing, distribution, promotion, advertising that are made based on the position of the product. If the position is unclear, all these decisions cannot be made consistently and thus cannot deliver a consistent image to the customer, making it difficult for customer to put your product in their mind. The book is very clear in the content and format. It brings out a great deal of marketing concept and at the same time clarifies a lot of incorrect concepts people in general have, giving us a clearer picture. Moreover, it divides the 22 laws into 22 chapters. Only by reading the title of that chapter can we easily know what that chapter is talking about. It is also easy to understand. Ries and Trout can illustrate profound marketing concepts in very simple words, with the use of metaphor and real world examples. We can learn a lot from the success and the mistake from these real world applications. Though it is heard that the examples used are not up-to-date, I think it does not really matter as they can help me understand the law a lot. I can say that I enjoy reading this book very much. I can get a lot of insights from it!
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Summary: A law predicts the future
Review: A "law" should predict the future, not just explain the past. This book gives you a good explanation of how some marketing campaigns have worked (or failed) in the past, but it's hard to see how they apply in the future. Too many of the laws contradict or cancel each-other out. While they do a nice job of explaining why certain laws lead to the success or failure of a product in the past, six years later their track record for using these laws to predict the future is pretty poor. Hayes is gone, not the leader in the modem industry, Microsoft did succeed in overextending their brand name and toppling Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect, Pen Computers (i.e. PDAs) have taken off... This book provides some interesting food for thought and is worth reading. Its poor predictions, however, underscore the fact that marketing is still a very human activity and it's anybody's guess how a particular campaign is going to turn out. Of course, the "Law of Unpredictability" covers that one too.
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Summary: excellent marketing book
Review: Many marketing books one forgets about after only 2-3 weeks, the 22 laws have some good rules that one can easily remeber and apply in real world situations. No fluff.
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Summary: The Best Marketing Book!
Review: Of all the Trout and Ries written books, this is my favorite. It is the simplest, easiest to read, and yet is so profound. The title chapters alone provide tremendous insight. I particularly liked "The Law of the Ladder: The Strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder," and "The Law of Duality: In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race." It's nice to see that after all these years, this book is still selling strongly. It's a testiment to its value.
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Summary: Perils of ignoring the counter-intuitive
Review: Contrarians are usually lonely people, since the herd is usually contentedly grazing together, while the lonely bull is standing alone. But the herd is led to the slaughter, and the lonely bull just might live to fight another day. It's lonely at the top, but the truth will ultimately set you free to be the best. And the unvarnished truth is what you get in this slender, but weighty handbook. This tome might almost be the only book on marketing you ever need, since almost any conceivable marketing problem can be seem encapsulated in its pages. Buy it, study it, live it.
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Summary: Recycled Material
Review: If you haven't yet read anything by Ries and Trout, this could be a five star book. In and of itself, it's a solid book, chock full of uncommon, common sense marketing approaches. If, on the other hand you've read "Positioning" or "Focus" (Both Superb!) you will have just purchased that which you already have. Reading something by Reis/Trout is an absolute must; they are simply brilliant when it comes to defining, and illustrating, and writing about critical marketing principles. If you've got the time, read "Positioning" and "Focus". If you'd prefer a Cliffs Notes of those two, "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" will fit the bill.
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Summary: Unbeleivably Valuable
Review: This is a year of college in Marketing in one book. - DaveDavidson.com
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Summary: Ries & Trout Come Up Short
Review: Overview of the Book I have to admit that I had high expectations for The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. As a Marketing major undergraduate, as well as a Marketing Manager in my professional life, I've read many marketing strategy books. My overall impression of the book was that it was written with the sole purpose of selling a lot of copies. The authors have managed to cram 22 laws into a 132 page book. This allows for only six pages per law, but actually five pages if you include the title pages with artwork. In addition, the font size is very large, making this a quick read. If the point of the book was for a "quick read," the authors accomplished their objective. However, the substance of the book is extremely weak. Throughout the book, the authors do not cite any research or facts to back up their claims. The entire content is based on anecdotal examples, falsely portrayed as examples of companies either following the "laws" or breaking the "laws". In most cases, success or failure is not the cause of one event, law, or other factor. Success is derived from a number of factors. The authors incorrectly assert that their "laws" are the cause for the "effect" that resulted. Their logic is, "Because company A does this, it proves that our "law" is the correct strategy. This logic fails to consider other factors that led to the result being discussed. The authors cite "22 Immutable Laws" in their book. Using the "law" terminology implies that these are ideas that are not to be questioned and that these "laws" will apply to all marketing situations. It would be easy to write a book based on well-documented business failures by creating laws that would highlight all of the mistakes, after the fact. However, I would call this "Monday morning quarterbacking". For every example they use to support a law, there are numerous examples that prove their "laws" wrong. The most compelling reason that my assertions are correct is the fact that they used their laws in the book to predict future failures. An interesting aspect of the book is that it was written in 1994. The authors make many predictions in the book, including the probable demise of Chrysler, the unlikely future success of Microsoft, and the failures of Donald Trump. The last time I checked, Chrysler was introducing the broadest selection of new car models, including the Viper, the Prowler, and the PT Cruiser. Microsoft has become the world's most dominant software company. Some would even argue that Microsoft has become the world's most dominant company, period. Also, Donald Trump has completely turned himself around and is a major player once again in the world of business. As it turns out, it would be an understatement to say that their predictions did not materialize. If a new edition of this book came out today, I'm sure that these two authors would probably find current examples to continue to support their faulty logic.
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Summary: Those who can't do, teach
Review: My belief is that most people who are seriously involved in the Internet business will find this book to be around an even mix of things that are a) useful, b) completely obvious, c) probably only partly correct. I don't regret reading it, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it if you are in the business and, like most people in the business, have limited time.
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Summary: Catchy title but doesn't deliver the goods
Review: Webster's Dictionary defines "immutable" as "not capable of, or susceptible to, change." One would think then that immutable laws of marketing should be fundamental principles of marketing. They should be like physics concepts such as gravity and inertia, that are true regardless of whether we like them or not, apply equally to all situations, and helps us make sense of the world. In "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk," Al Ries and Jack Trout present a number of concepts that are true only sometimes, some that apply to a limited set of situations, or are observations that might be true if seen from a certain point of view but have limited value. The "laws" they present are better described as "rules of thumb." For instance, Ries & Trout posit the "The Law of Leadership" which states, "It's better to be first than it is to be better." However, Sony's Betamax VCR and Apple's Newton PDA are just two of many examples where being first DID NOT lead to success. VHS VCRs and Palm Pilots succeeded, even though they came later, because they were the first to gain enough customer acceptance and create enough momentum to create and sustain a profitable business. All things being equal, being first is preferable because you may get some "first mover" advantages. However, many companies have successfully adopted the "fast follower" strategy where they allow innovators do the hard work of creating a market, and then apply greater resources and management skill to achieve long-term dominance. Another example is Ries' & Trout's "The Law of Perception" which states, "Marketing is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions." While perceptions are important, making the claim that "marketing is not a battle of products" is overly simplistic. If a personal computer is twice as fast, and is one-half the price than competitors with comparable features, who do you think is going to win? I would agree with Ries & Trout that marketing is not MERELY a battle of products, and that other considerations like perceptions are important too. But they overstate the case and make a false dichotomy. "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" may be useful introduction to some marketing ideas for people new to the field, especially those involved with consumer products (e.g., toothpaste, soft drinks, tissue paper). For people interesting in learning about marketing and selling high-tech products, or marketing strategies for highly competitive markets, I'd suggest reading works by Geoffrey Moore, Regis McKenna and Philip Kotler.
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