The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing Al Ries

[joshua]

Rather than breaking the lessons down into individual laws, the following summary is what I learnt from the ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’. If you want, you can read a short summary of each law here.

Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what is better. The book does an excellent job of highlighting the importance of being first. You can always get better as you go along but you can never become first if you’re not already. Being first allows you to define your market’s point of view. More importantly, you have no competition when you start out. When the competition does arrive then you are already set up as the most credible player. The advice is simple, if you can’t be the first then invent a new category and be the first in that.

The book defines marketing as the manipulation of people’s perceptions of products and services. When manipulating perceptions the holy grail of marketing is to own a word in people’s mind. Not a made up word but a simple everyday word that says everything you what it to about what you offer. There are two rules when it comes to picking the word you want to own. The first is that you can’t pick a word if it already owned. If it is already owned people will get confused and it won’t work. The second rule is that the word has to be opposable. Being the “best” is not a valid word because nobody wants to be the worst. Being “young” is fine though, which is exactly what pepsi did when it took on an establish behemoth like Coca-cola. A behemoth that has been around for ages.

A good marketing short-term marketing plan is to come up with an angle or word that differentiates your product or company. Then you set up a coherent long-term marketing direction that maximizes that idea or angle. Long-term plans are stupid because things always change (and ignoring this is futile), long-term directions are much better because they are flexible and adaptable.

When you start a marketing campaign you need to ask yourself where you sit in the prospect’s mind. If you are up and coming, play the up and coming card. If you are no two, make a big deal about being the runner up. There is no point trying to be number 1 when you are not perceived to be. People only accept new information that is consistent with what they already know. Everything else is ignored.

Companies that are tightly focused on a single product remain profitable. The next day the same company spreads itself thin over many products and they start losing money. In essence, when someone says do you have a Rizla you know exactly what they mean. If Rizla started making cars, fans, pens and swimming pools…the question would just be confusing. When it comes to marketing and people’s perceptions, More is less. It’s better to be strong somewhere than weak everywhere.

It may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospects mind is to admit a negative and then twist it with a positive. If you have a rubbish product name you have two choices, change the name or make fun of it. The one thing you can’t do is ignore a bad name. The caveat is that for this to work your “negative” must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger instant agreement otherwise it is just bad marketing.

And finally…

You’ll go further with a mediocre idea and a million dollars than a great idea alone.

[Zannie]

Who wrote this book?

[joshua]

Al Ries and Jack Trout