Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67642 in Books
• Published on: 1994-10-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Synopsis
Ries and Trout share their rules for certain successes in the world of marketing. Combining a wide-ranging historical overview with a keen eye for the future, the authors bring to light 22 superlative tools and innovative techniques for the international marketplace.

Customer Reviews

The Business
This book is quite old - ten years - but that only shows how right they got it then. I know nothing about marketing but reading this book made me see where I've gone wrong so many times. A lot of it is counter-intuitive, which is probably why it gets some less that brilliant reviews. Some people don't want to hear or acknowledge the truth - especially those who call themselves professional meketeers. Keep your heads stuck in the sand guys!

Read it twice and then have a long hard think about your marketing strategy. Write out the 22 laws and see if you can honestly tick them off. It works for more than just business too.

Superb - albeit the same as the 22 Immutable laws of branding
Twenty years ago I knew hundreds of things about marketing. Now I know just a few things. Almost all of them are in this book, and the authors crystallise them excellently.

The 22 laws is in many ways superb, but it could be criticised on three counts
First, it seems quite opinionated. Who is Ries to say that things are this way and not another way? Interestingly, basic books on marketing will cut the cake both ways, saying 'you can do this, or you can do that...'. Top marketing books, though, written by the gurus that people in the know want to hear from, are much more in agreement. What Ries is saying may not be original, but it fairly represents the balance of opinion at the top table.
Second, the book is quite dated. It was written in 1994, and, in many ways, we're in a different world now. On the other hand, this is no bad thing: you can look at the brands that Ries said would not prosper unless they changed their marketing, and compare them with what did prosper. Eight times out of ten Ries was right. The other two times fit perfectly with his law of unpredictability.
Third, the book is actually pretty much the same as the 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, by the same author. I've got both books, and I don't begrudge Al Ries the money. The emphasis is a little different, and the one reinforces the other.

Ultimately, marketing is about distilling a distinctive promise to the consumer and then promoting it aggressively. This book is mainly about the distinctive promise and its distillation. It talks about the kinds of campaigns that this leads to, but it isn't a how-to book for doing your first city-wide outdoor advertising campaign. There are lots of other books out there that do that -- but, be warned: many of them fall into the frequent traps that Ries warns us about.

For my money, this is a book well worth heeding.

Trout and Ries write the laws on marketing
Using actual examples and sharp analysis, Al Ries and Jack Trout offer 22 "laws" that amount to a basic, concise distillation of their marketing experience and wisdom. Their examples are pithy enough to keep the most jaded marketing person engaged. And their lessons are embedded verities that would be hard to dispute. The only drawback is that this classic may be a bit dated, so it is interesting to see how surprisingly well some of their original observations have fared over the years. We recommend this classic to anyone seriously interested in marketing. After all, you can't ignore the law.