5 Laws Of Marketing

Chapter 5: The Law Of Focus. The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind. Not a complicated word, or an.
Table of contents

There are many examples where fast followers successfully overtook the pioneer of a category. But the main challenge is defining the new pond and getting the consumers who were in the old, bigger pond to come to your pond. So, instead of the marketing problem being the fact that no one knows you the small fish in the big pond , it becomes the fact that no one knows your pond in which you are the big, or perhaps the only, fish.

Which is the harder marketing problem? Or that JetBlue was a low cost luxury airline? This law is consistent with modern consumers because success in marketing is about when, and if, they remember you; not when you put products and services into the marketplace.

Today, people will become aware of you when a friend tells them about you. People will remember you if you consistently deliver great products and services. The Law of Perception — Marketing is not a battle of products, but a battle of perceptions. Marketing can, and should, be a battle of the products. The products that can leverage feedback from actual customers and incorporate relevant innovations faster will win.

So, the battle of lasting perceptions is only won by winning the battle of products, and doing so consistently. But only in the scenario where the ownership of the word is earned through consistent brand stewardship, backed up by awesome products or services. And the word is usually not the word advertisers choose it to be, but rather what the consumer thinks it is.

Each individual consumer may have his or her own word for it. To one, Starbucks may be great coffee. Even the most beloved brands may mean different things to different people. To some, Apple may be great design; to another, easy-to-use. It has to be earned like the way Zappos did, by doing and not just saying. Because it was actually better. When Bing first came out, an exact phrase search in quotes yielded more results than the same search without quotes; which is wrong. Many tried it, and then never used it again.

View all 6 comments. Nov 17, Amir Tesla rated it it was amazing Shelves: 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. Marketing is a manipulation of those perceptions.

Reading some books is like learning a new language, you understand things you didn't before and you see things, you didn't see before "the 22 immutable laws of marketing" is definitely one of them. Besides these, knowing about marketing can have significant implications for your personal lives as well a couple of which I'll point out throughout this review. Since first I started reading about "Cognitive Science", it's fascinating how counter-intuitive many things in life are and the same holds true for marketing.

This book, envelops 22 principles of marketing which is the result of a 25 years experience.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk

Very concise and illuminating, the authors explain each law followed by several examples of businesses who followed or violated that law along with the consequences of their actions. Here are a gist of the important laws and I think the other ones are an interplay or derivation of these laws. The law of leadership According to this law, the first company who starts with an idea, will always own the major market share.

Once a name captures the prospects' mind, nothing can change it. The other reason is that people associate the name of the first brand to the idea. For instance Xerox, still many people use the name xerox when they want to ask for a copy. Well, does it mean when some company like coca-cola starts a coke business, its over for the others? No, if the newcomers exploit the other laws. The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in.

It's much easier to get into the mind first than to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first. The law of the category If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in. When you lunch a new product, to compete the first-comer, you must NOT ask yourself: Everyone talks about why their brand is better.

But prospects have an open mind when it comes to categories. The law of the mind It's better to be first in the mind than to be first in the market place. This law supports the first one. The fist one who reaches the minds of the prospects, wins the position. You can't change the mind once it's made up if you want to make a big impression on another person, you cannot worm your way into their mind and then slowly build up a favorable opinion over a period of time.


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You have to blast your way into the mind. They kind of file you away in their minds as a certain kind of person. The law of perception This is one of my favorites: The law of focus Continued Dec 11, Luke rated it really liked it. Tim Ferriss listed this in his top 5 favorite books, so I picked it up. The core of the 22 laws is Identity. The authors argue that too many businesses believe they will win simply by having the best product, which isn't true.

The winner is the product that captures the mind of its target customers. When a product is first to market, the first of its category, it usually establishes a foothold that no other company can wrest away. So create your own category, and be first there. Win the minds of t Tim Ferriss listed this in his top 5 favorite books, so I picked it up. Win the minds of the people. If you are second or worse in a category, acknowledge this. Avis Rent-a-Car did this by admitting, "We're second place - but we try harder. Ragu pasta sauce did this by winning the word "thicker," which differentiates them from the market leader, Prego.

A very good book for understanding basic principles of how marketing needs to go beyond simply saying why your product is the best. Oct 18, Yevgeniy Brikman rated it liked it. This book is a good overview of basic marketing principles, but the so-called "immutable laws" are neither laws nor immutable. They are, at best, rules of thumb that often change and contradict each other. The book itself contains plenty of examples of this! Moreover, the book is dated. They talk extensively about how essential it is to be first in the market "Law of Leadership" , but there are a huge number of modern examples that became wildly successful despite violating this "law", including Google not the first search engine , Facebook not the first social network , LinkedIn not the first professional network or job site , and many others.

An even bigger problem with this book is that it's observational and not predictive.

Whereas laws of science allow you to predict what will happen in the future e. The authors try to determine cause and effect from these past events, but correlation does not imply causation.

For example, the book talks about IBM being wildly profitable while they focused on one business line and then barely surviving after starting to work on multiple business lines. But the world isn't static. IBM could've started to struggle for dozens of other reasons: All that said, this book is still valuable as a collection of interesting marketing case studies and as a way to get into the mind of a marketer. Some of the useful ideas you'll find: For example, in the US, Honda is seen as a car maker, whereas in Japan, it's seen as a motorcycle maker, even though it's the same company with the same products.

You can get there by dominating an existing category Candor can be disarming. People are naturally suspicious of anyone praising themselves, but if you admit a negative, most people a automatically assume you're telling the truth, b assume if you're willing to talk about a weakness, then you must have some amazing strengths, c reflexively forgive you and become more open to the rest of your message. For example, if you make cars that compete with Volvo, marketing around "safety" won't be as effective as marketing around "speed" or "fun" or "elegant design".

I recommend skimming the book, and instead of accepting the authors' interpretation of events and assuming they are teaching you immutable laws, file away these ideas as facets you should consider when developing a marketing strategy. I suppose it would be more accurate to call this book "22 rules of thumb about marketing," but I'm sure that would violate one of their marketing laws As always, I saved a few of my favorite quotes from the book: Try to be different. Apr 05, Melissa rated it it was ok Shelves: The usual business book They violated their title in the first chapter I read this book because another business author I like recommended it and because I am currently writing a class on marketing and wanted to use it for research.

I want to be careful here. When writing a review for a book I don't like I want to keep in mind that I am talking about something that people created. I do NOT want to write anything that I would not say to the authors' faces if they were standing right in front of me.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing No Longer Apply - ClickZ

This is difficult in a way because I really, REALLY didn't I read this book because another business author I like recommended it and because I am currently writing a class on marketing and wanted to use it for research. The book struck me as being a manual on how to manipulate others written by masters of the craft. The book is woefully out-of-date as well and many of the author's examples are no longer relevant. I get that the majority of the "laws" they espouse in the book are still relevant, but I don't know if I could, in good conscience, use many of them.

In one part of the book the authors recommend that you choose a product differentiator and then make people believe that this aspect of your product is something that they desperately need. Even when they don't. But knowing something and having it shoved in your face in all its ugliness are two different things. If anything, this book drove home the truth of the sinfulness of man for me. Not just because of the things these men were recommending but also because of my response. Here I was, reading the book and feeling disgusted and then I started feeling very smug that I was so much more moral than the authors.

But it is human. And maybe that can be said about the book too. Feb 24, Saeed rated it really liked it Shelves: May 19, Umar Ghumman rated it it was amazing.

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I love this book. The laws are still applicable and will be applicable 25 years from now. May 08, Tiffany Reisz rated it really liked it. Dated but very interesting and thought-provoking. Dec 19, Kirtida Gautam rated it really liked it Shelves: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a great book. It's very small and easy to read. The chapters start with words of wisdom. Some of them are counter intuitive and makes complete sense. Few Quotes that I liked. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of speak up on you.


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    6. Capturing the imagination of the public is not the same as revolutionizing a market. Jul 10, Medhat Ramadan rated it liked it Shelves: Jul 16, Ahmad Abugosh rated it it was ok. So many people recommend that I read this book, so I finally gave it a shot. At first I thought it was amazing and lived up to the hype, law of leadership, cool, law of perception, even better! I loved how he got psychological about it and talks about how people perceive brands. Where he began to lose me however, was everything that had to do with anything that happened in the last 20 years.

    I realize this book was written in the early 90's but some of the things he mentioned have been proved wr So many people recommend that I read this book, so I finally gave it a shot. I realize this book was written in the early 90's but some of the things he mentioned have been proved wrong many times. He gets very cynical towards the end. It just seemed out of place, and silly.

    Obviously you have advantages if you already have money or get married into it. How does that help us? Also, he mentioned that products always sneak up on you at night and catch on in the back of the paper but never on the front page, but that's not really true all of the time look at the unveiling of any Apple product or more recently Tesla. True that is easier, but there are countless startups that have made it by bootstrapping or seeking angel investment.