Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsThis book is so simplistic it's insulting to the reader
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2004
In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout attempt to provide the reader with a set of rules that should always produce the expected result in marketing. The authors ask, rhetorically, why highly paid marketers violate these rules and state that "billions of dollars have been wasted on marketing programs that couldn't possibly work, no matter how clever or brilliant." The implication is that this would not happen if these marketers would simply read this book. Unfortunately a number of the "laws" presented are simplistic, overstated, redundant and, in some cases, contradictory.
The laws start out rather simply: Law 1 "It's better to be first than it is to be better." This one makes sense, yet it is not that groundbreaking. Obviously, being first to market is important, but the authors imply that if you are not first to market you should not get into the market at all.
Law 2 "If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category." Saying it differently, "If you can not be first to market, try a slightly different market." This is still, in effect, being first to market. This seems to be an example of the first law, all it is really saying is that it is important to be first to market.
The first major contradiction comes in Law 7 "The Law of the Ladder" which has to do with how you operate depending on which position in your market you occupy. How can the authors offer a strategy to being in the second position in a market if Law 1 states that you never want to be in any position other than the first? Moving on to Law 9 "The Law of the Opposite: If you're shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader." This law violates the first law, and also seems obvious. When entering a market with a clear leader why would any marketer ignore what that company has done to become the leader? Also in this law the authors state that "you should leverage the leader's strength into a weakness," yet they do not explain how one would do this.
Law 12, "The Law of Line Extension," dictates that extending a brand past what is currently successful is foolish and will fail. The authors state that this is one of the most violated laws, and they illustrate this with an interesting example. The authors take aim at a software company which - in 1993 when the book was written-was just developing. The authors fault the company for trying to acquire assets and software companies to try to compete against already entrenched software giants like Lotus, WordPerfect, and SPC Software. They continue to detail how this company is setting itself up for failure by continuing to push for market leadership in all manner of software applications even though they do not currently lead in any. The name of the company which the authors state "has ominous signs of softness in their strategy" is Microsoft. Microsoft is the current leader in all markets the authors discuss.
While there is some good information offered by Ries and Trout, none of it is all that impressive or insightful. There are a number of contradictions in the laws themselves which seem to make the laws more like easily bendable rules than anything concrete. The suggestions offered are often so vague that it seems like the authors are simply saying "just market better," which is rarely helpful. The examples used are repetitive and often lead to predictions that must embarrass the authors now. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing does not offer a vastly different perspective on marketing from what most would consider common sense, and the examples fail to be useful.
