BIQ: Books I Quote: "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Al Ries

NOTES FROM

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing from Al Ries

This book has been recommended to me by Josh Gardner (Thanks Josh!) He mentioned that I not only needed serious help with my marketing strategy but also some serious changes.

I appreciate that kind of direct feedback: It makes me move forward (often in a new, better direction.)

This book was a really good read. Some examples are a bit outdated now, but it outlines simply and clearly the basic laws of Marketing that make sense but that nobody applies.

I violate the basic laws of marketing daily. It might take time for me to change and apply them, but at least I am aware of it now and I can pick up my notes to remind myself of what I should be doing.

If you're into Marketing and Branding, this book is a must read.

Below are the excerpts from my first read of this book:

"Many people believe that the basic issue in marketing is convincing prospects that you have a better product or service. Not true."

1. The Law of Leadership

"Benchmarking is the process of comparing and evaluating your company’s products against the best in the industry. It’s an essential element in a process often called “total quality management.” Unfortunately, benchmarking doesn’t work. Regardless of reality, people perceive the first product into the mind as superior. Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products."

"People tend to stick with what they’ve got. If you meet someone a little better than your wife or husband, it’s really not worth making the switch, what with attorneys’ fees and dividing up the house and kids."

2. The Law of the Category

"After Heineken became a big success, the people at Anheuser-Busch could have said, “We should bring in an imported beer, too.” But they didn’t. Instead they said, “If there’s a market for a high-priced imported beer, maybe there’s a market for a high-priced domestic beer.”

"If you didn’t get into the prospect’s mind first, don’t give up hope. Find a new category you can be first in. It’s not as difficult as you might think."

"If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in."

"When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not “How is this new product better than the competition?” but “First what?” In other words, what category is this new product first in?"

"When you’re the first in a new category, promote the category. In essence, you have no competition. DEC told its prospects why they ought to buy a minicomputer, not a DEC minicomputer."

3. The Law of the Mind

"The single most wasteful thing you can do in marketing is try to change a mind."

4. The Law of Perception

"Many people think marketing is a battle of products. In the long run, they figure, the best product will win. Marketing people are preoccupied with doing research and “getting the facts.” They analyze the situation to make sure that truth is on their side. Then they sail confidently into the marketing arena, secure in the knowledge that they have the best product and that ultimately the best product will win. It’s an illusion. There is no objective reality. There are no facts. There are no best products. All that exists in the world of marketing are perceptions in the minds of the customer or prospect. The perception is the reality. Everything else is an illusion."

"To cope with the terrifying reality of being alone in the universe, people project themselves on the outside world. They “live” in the arena of books, movies, television, newspapers, magazines. They “belong” to clubs, organizations, institutions. These outside representations of the world seem more real than the reality inside their own minds. People cling firmly to the belief that reality is the world outside of the mind and that the individual is one small speck on a global spaceship. Actually it’s the opposite. The only reality you can be sure about is in your own perceptions. If the universe exists, it exists inside your own mind and the minds of others. That’s the reality that marketing programs must deal with. There may well be oceans, rivers, cities, towns, trees, and houses out there, but there just isn’t any way for us to know these things except through our own perceptions. Marketing is a manipulation of those perceptions. Most marketing mistakes stem from the assumption that you’re fighting a product battle rooted in reality. All the laws in this book are derived from the exact opposite point of view."

"If you think you need the best product to win a marketing battle, then it’s easy to believe you have the best product. All that’s required is a minor modification of your own perceptions."

5. The Law of Focus

The author claims that you need to "own" a word, and associate it with your brand in your prospect's mind.

"If you’re not a leader, then your word has to have a narrow focus. Even more important, however, your word has to be “available” in your category. No one else can have a lock on it."

"Here are a few examples:

Crest > cavities

Mercedes > engineering

BMW > driving

Volvo > safety

Domino’s > home delivery

Pepsi-Cola > youth

Nordstrom > service"

"Some companies accept the need to narrow the focus and try to accomplish this strategy in ways that are self-defeating. “We’ll focus on the quality end of the market. We won’t get into the low end where the emphasis is on price.” The problem is that customers don’t believe you unless you restrict your business to high-priced products only, like Mercedes-Benz or BMW. General Motors tries to sell quality at all price levels. “Putting quality on the road” is their latest corporate slogan. Every GM product includes the “Mark of Excellence.” Guess what they’re doing at Ford? The same thing. “Quality is Job 1,” say the Ford ads. Over at Chrysler, Lee Iacocca proclaimed, “We don’t want to be the biggest, we just want to be the best.” (Does anyone really believe that Iacocca doesn’t want to be the biggest?) This is great stuff inside the corporation. Total quality, the path to greatness. It makes a terrific theme at dealer meetings, especially with the trumpet flourishes and the dancers. But outside the corporation, the message falls apart. Does any company proclaim itself as the “unquality” corporation? No, everybody stands for quality. As a result, nobody does."

"The essence of marketing is narrowing the focus. You become stronger when you reduce the scope of your operations. You can’t stand for something if you chase after everything."

"You can’t narrow the focus with quality or any other idea that doesn’t have proponents for the opposite point of view. You can’t position yourself as an honest politician, because nobody is willing to take the opposite position (although there are plenty of potential candidates). You can, however, position yourself as the pro-business candidate or the pro-labor candidate and be instantly accepted as such because there is support for the other side. "

Note from Marion: This is exactly the same for Core Values in a company. If you stand for "Passion" or "Quality", there is nobody who will care because nobody would stand for the opposite. What company says their Core Values is "Boredom" or "Indifference". You cannot chose core values that aren't standing for something special and different. What you stand for needs you to renounce something. It must hurt a little to be true. But back to Marketing...

"Whether the result of a deliberate program or not, most successful companies (or brands) are the ones that “own a word” in the mind of the prospect."

"The most effective words are simple and benefit oriented."

9. The Law of the Opposite

"Much like a wrestler uses his opponent’s strength against him, a company should leverage the leader’s strength into a weakness. If you want to establish a firm foothold on the second rung of the ladder, study the firm above you. Where is it strong? And how do you turn that strength into a weakness? You must discover the essence of the leader and then present the prospect with the opposite. (In other words, don’t try to be better, try to be different.) It’s often the upstart versus old reliable."

"In other words, by positioning yourself against the leader, you take business away from all the other alternatives to No. 1. If old people drink Coke and young people drink Pepsi, there’s nobody left to drink Royal Crown cola. Yet, too many potential No. 2 brands try to emulate the leader. This usually is an error. You must present yourself as the alternative."

"A good No. 2 can’t afford to be timid. When you give up focusing on No. 1, you make yourself vulnerable not only to the leader but to the rest of the pack."

12. The Law of Line Extension

"When you try to be all things to all people, you inevitably wind up in trouble. “I’d rather be strong somewhere,” said one manager, “than weak everywhere.” "

"More is less. The more products, the more markets, the more alliances a company makes, the less money it makes. “Full-speed ahead in all directions” seems to be the call from the corporate bridge. When will companies learn that line extension ultimately leads to oblivion?"

"Less is more. If you want to be successful today, you have to narrow the focus in order to build a position in the prospect’s mind."

13. The Law of Sacrifice

"The target is not the market. That is, the apparent target of your marketing is not the same as the people who will actually buy your product. Even though Pepsi-Cola’s target was the teenager, the market was everybody. The 50-year-old guy who wants to think he’s 29 will drink the Pepsi. The target of Marlboro advertising is the cowboy, but the market is everybody. Do you know how many cowboys are left in America? Very few. (They’ve all been smoking Marlboros.)"

"The world of business is populated by big, highly diversified generalists and small, narrowly focused specialists. If line extension and diversification were effective marketing strategies, you’d expect to see the generalists riding high. But they’re not. Most of them are in trouble."

14. The Law of Attributes

"Marketing is a battle of ideas. So if you are to succeed, you must have an idea or attribute of your own to focus your efforts around. Without one, you had better have a low price. A very low price."

"The law of exclusivity points to the simple truth that once an attribute is successfully taken by your competition, it’s gone. You must move on to a lesser attribute and live with a smaller share of the category. Your job is to seize a different attribute, dramatize the value of your attribute, and thus increase your share."

15. The Law of Candor

"It goes against corporate and human nature to admit a problem. For years, the power of positive thinking has been drummed into us. “Think positive” has been the subject of endless books and articles. So it may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospect’s mind is to first admit a negative and then twist it into a positive.

“Avis is only No. 2 in rent-a-cars.”

“With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.”

“The 1970 VW will stay ugly longer.”

“Joy. The most expensive perfume in the world.”

What’s going on here? Why does a dose of honesty work so well in the marketing process? First and foremost, candor is very disarming. Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as truth. Positive statements, on the other hand, are looked at as dubious at best. Especially in an advertisement."

"So why go with the obvious? Marketing is often a search for the obvious. Since you can’t change a mind once it’s made up, your marketing efforts have to be devoted to using ideas and concepts already installed in the brain. You have to use your marketing programs to “rub it in.” No program did this as brilliantly as the Avis No. 2 program. Positive thinking has been highly overrated. The explosive growth of communications in our society has made people defensive and cautious about companies trying to sell them anything. Admitting a problem is something that very few companies do. When a company starts a message by admitting a problem, people tend to, almost instinctively, open their minds. Think about the times that someone came to you with a problem and how quickly you got involved and wanted to help."

17. The Law of Unpredictability

"While tracking trends can be a useful tool in dealing with the unpredictable future, market research can be more of a problem than a help. Research does best at measuring the past. New ideas and concepts are almost impossible to measure. No one has a frame of reference. People don’t know what they will do until they face an actual decision."

18. The Law of Success

"As Gorbachev told Reagan, “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.” "

19. The Law of Failure

"When the senior executive has a high salary and a short time to retirement, a bold move is highly unlikely. Even junior executives often make “safe” decisions so as to not disrupt their progress up the corporate ladder. Nobody has ever been fired for a bold move they didn’t make. In some American companies nothing gets done unless it benefits the personal agenda of someone in top management. This severely limits the potential marketing moves a company can make. An idea gets rejected not because it isn’t fundamentally sound but because no one in top management will personally benefit from its success."

20. The Law of Hype

"For the most part, hype is hype. Real revolutions don’t arrive at high noon with marching bands and coverage on the 6:00 P.M. news. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you."

21. The Law of Acceleration

"Successful programs are not built on fads, they’re built on trends."

22. The Law of Resources

"You need money for adequate funding for a technical product to pay for brochures, sales presentations, and trade shows as well as advertising."

All Excerpts From

Ries, Al. “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.” HarperCollins, 2009-10-12T16:00:00+00:00. Apple Books. This material may be protected by copyright.?

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