Rating: 
Summary: interesting theory, but is lacking strong supporting facts
Review: It is not uncommon to hear the fall of advertising, and the rise of PR. The book illustrates some interesting points. But the authors use facts that are not objective enough. e.g. does really advertisement will attract opposite ideas (promoting safety of the tyre actually triggers people to think about the accident?? I don't think so) So overall, the book, though not necessary totally unbelivable, unadvoidably give me an impression that it is only a subjective heresay.
Rating:
Summary: Asserts Good Case for Brand Building
Review: With a title like this, why would anyone in the advertising world want to read this book?
Two reasons. One, some clients are bound to and forewarned is forearmed. But better yet, many of the points the authors make can be easily refuted.
To start with, they have a marked propensity for the "assertion" school of argumentation, i.e. state one fact: Nissan ran a popular ad. State a second fact: Nissan's sales went down. Conclusion: The ad didn't increase sales. Did anyone say "post hoc ergo propter hoc"?
But, to be fair, they definitely do a good job of describing many of the flaws of the traditional ad agency model: its over-reliance on creativity for creativity's sake; its penchant for line extensions and its inability to build on ideas "not invented here". And they make a very good case for what is at the core of brand building, namely novelty. There's no question that new ideas, new names and new categories are what makes news.
However, some of the public relations triumphs they cite seem utterly disconnected from the day-to-day world of PR practice. The mere fact that Sony's Playstation ended up on the cover of Newsweek or that at one point in time there were more articles about Amazon than former president Clinton can't automatically be attributed to the efforts of some PR agent or surely the authors would have named him or her. On the contrary, both of these items were just newsworthy. Thus, the apocalyptic title of this book may be stretching it a bit.
But, in the end, this book does suggest a new definition of the role of mass advertising that should come as music to the industry's ears. What they maintain is that mass advertising's fundamental role is as insurance to protect a brand's established franchise. In other words, while it may take a host of things to establish a new brand, once that brand is established and begins to lose some of its novelty and newsworthiness it needs something-ads-to protect its position. This is an interesting observation and an important one to advertising agencies because it plays right into the natural tendency of clients (and businesspeople in general) to want to minimize risk. Positioning advertising as another tool in the risk-avoidance area, like interest rate swaps or commodity hedges, as opposed to as an imperfect tool for brand building might give advertising an entirely new saliency.
And who in the ad business doesn't want that?
Rating: 
Summary: Overated
Review: I'm not a mkting professional nor an Adman and yet i could see right through the thinly constructed arguments in this tome. For example, the authors cite an alternative strategy (presumably in lieu of mkting / advertising campaigns in known travel and other publications) they would recommend to the central american country Guatemala to increase their share of worldwide tourism spend. They're concept is simple, rename the country 'Guatemaya' to reflect its Mayan heritage. Bloody hell! That's something one might vet internally BEFORE the client meeting along with all the other goofy stuff one throws out during the creative process, but to actually suggest something like that to the client? Wow... i put the book down right there...
Rating:
Summary: Regurgitated material. Save your money.
Review: This book is yet another example of symbolism over substance. The book follows a long line of books by marketing dinosaurs (e.g. Scott Davis, David Aaker, Al Ries, Tom Peters) who are on the downslope of their careers. The common thread between these books is this: it is the same material recycled, rewritten and regurgitated with the respective authors' own style of spin. The content isn't new, isn't innovative, isn't anything other than re-purposed content. Who doesn't know that advetising doesn't work? Really? Thanks, Al for repeating something that anyone remotely exposed to marketing knows. This book killed, unnecessarily, a lot of trees. Save your money. Unless, of course, you are a corporate lemming who works for a large corporation; who was just moved from finance to marketing and don't know a thing about marketing, this book might be for you. You won't know any better. However, common sense will tell you that this book is a lot of fluff.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting truths buried in repetition and hypothesis
Review: While there are some interesting points in this book -- obviously, the central being that too many marketing professionals ignore the brand-building power of positive PR -- what's good about the book is too often overshadowed by what's not-so-good: specifically, that the book revisits its premises again and again in such a way that they begin to sound desperate and that much of what the Rieses hypothesize is not backed by any sort of research. Most disturbing is their habit of trashing prospective clients who apparently dared not to buy into their PR-based strategies. Relating how they suggested Guatemala change its name to Guatemaya to boost tourism (through more direct association with the Mayan ruins that constitute their biggest tourist attraction) tells you more about how realistically the Rieses approach solutions than anything else. What if the approach *hadn't* worked? And even if it had, it's hard to believe the resulting increase in tourism would have erased the cost of changing the country's name. Also, they conveniently point out examples which tend to support their theories but ignore those that don't. They rail against line extensions, citing failures like Chevrolet's ill-fated Geo line, but say nothing about the success of extensions like Colgate Total, Diet Coke, or countless other revenue-boosting extensions. They praise the celebrity CEO, suggesting a CEO should spend 50% of his time (?!?) promoting a company via PR efforts, but fail to foresee the potential damage to the brand once that CEO becomes mired in his own bad PR (see: Martha Stewart). Also, anyone who's read Jim Collins's "Good to Great" knows a self-promoting, PR-hungry CEO is not necessarily the kind who leads a brand to dominance. Unlike the Rieses, Collins has the research to prove that. It's not all bad. Certainly, their point about advertising agencies interested more in splashy creative that promotes the agency's interests as much -- if not moreso -- than the client's is well-taken. But for all the would-be clients they ridicule for not accepting the ideas they offered in their consultation, the Rieses never seem to quantify the success of a client who signed off on their strategy. In the end, they put forth an interesting hypothesis, but you have to wade through a lot of self-serving pitchmanship (and in a relatively slim volume at that) before getting there.
Rating:
Summary: Another Lame book by father and daughter
Review: wow--talk about an insult to my intelligence. they really should try and research their books, provide footnotes for accountability. i am amazed that these books continue to get published. al should have quit after positioning. all of the other reviews on this board confirm my belief--you will learn NOTHING from this 2 pound business card/brochure for their PR services.
Rating:
Summary: Laura Ries is the weak link of Al Ries
Review: I declare myself an Al Ries fan. I've read all his books. I've attended his seminars. His concepts have make my firm grow exponentially. However, I consider his association with his daugther a negative move. Why? Because she still lacks the experience, the stature and the conceptual framework to write books side to side to the guru. I totally buy the concept of "PR to launch brands, advertising to defend brands". It works!! (the concept was presented by the authors on their previous GREAT book: The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. The problem is The Fall of Adv. is not a well written book. It's obvious this book was written mainly by unexperienced Laura Ries (on Al Ries strong concepts, of course). I've studied the writting patterns. However I think this book is neccesary. You should read it. There are extremely valuable concepts burned into Laura's "not yet good enough" writting style. Advertising role must be updated. But be sure to read other Ries books before, so you get the story right. I hope their future books are much better written, so Ries concepts get the high quality delivery they deserve.
Rating:
Summary: Self PR at its best
Review: This was a feeble attempt to draw attention to the authors rather than some of the truly critical and substantive issues related to this dynamic era in the history of advertising and integrated brand promotion.
This is a poorly argued premise with a self-promotion agenda. While the authors provide a few case histories of brands that have succeeded by relying on the (unpredictable direction) of the PR process, there are literally hundreds of examples that contradict their premise. Save your money, read the other books that show on the list when you search for this book
Rating: 
Summary: WHICH MEDIA? CANNOT ANSWER THAT WITH A BLANKET NOTION.
Review: I recall reading an article in HBR that questioned the efficacy of traditional advertising and the humongous marketing budgets that are allocated to it. Pick up the book "HBR on Brand Management" and indeed the first case study addresses this issue. It _is_ a very pertinent, timely and important question: how to allocate your budgets across the different forms of marketing touchpoints? And there's ample evidence to show how media other than advertising lead to the phenomenal success of products. Carrie Bradshaw, the protagonist of the hot HBO show "Sex And The City" spends more than she can afford from her journalist salary on Hermes Birkin bags and the whole world sends the brand (a simple bag for god's sake) into a waiting list of not weeks, not months, but 3 years! Michael Moore decides that he doesn't have the budget to market his next fabrication ("Stupid White Men") so he cultivates a clever little following through the use of online channels. A "big3" US automotive manufacturer creates a frenzy for its new product launch through a kiosk placed in a popular spot at Disney World and with a clever unprecedented campaign. Prada launches a classic architectural marvel of a store in NY and then gets a zillion journalists to write about it in business magazines, NYT, fashion magazines, architectural publications etc. The common theme underpinning the success of these initiatives is that these novel marketing ideas, or PR, are inherently credible because consumers KNOW that the product's endorsement does not come from its vendor but from "trusted" third-party mavens in the society. Advertising on the other hand suffers from an intrinsic bias of hawking one's wares. That, to me, is the crux of this all-too-important argument and the one that Ries & Ries intended to veer their book around. HOWEVER, I am sorry to say that their endeavour is a mediocre one at best as they try to wrap a blanket around the question and suggest that ONLY public relations is the cassandra call that marketers need to heed. Doesn't tickle my fancies, sorry. The truth is not black or white. If Sony gives up all advertising and relies ONLY on creative little PR ideas to do ALL its marketing, it is anyone's guess what will happen to it in the medium to long run. It smacks of intellectual dishonesty to cite examples of doozy advertising campaigns such as the one from pets.com -- and conveniently skipping the pitfalls of unsuccessful PR -- to grind their one-sided axe. Doesn't really help their case that PR is not really "this new marketing strategy", it has just been used creatively by the examples they impose on the readers. But this logical fallacy aside, the book also disappoints against the litmus of purely a decent casual read. Several cliches line the text ("sky's the limit", "throw gasoline on fire"), as do unbelievable exaggerations ("Every brand that got to the top got there through PR" -- I dont think so, sorry). For a much more succint yet compelling treatment of this subject, I recommend the first chapter of the book "HBR on Brand Management" which talks about media allocations. For the practice of PR in general, you'd be better off reading the much more balanced "The Practice of Public Relations" by Fraser Seitel.
Rating: 
Summary: So many valuable lessons learned..........
Review: This book was a winner from page 1. Having just graduated from college and landing a job as a Marketing Manager with a small software company, I think this book was very well-written. Its content was very fresh - using many examples from recent news headlines, etc. A definite read for any marketing enthusiast.
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