When citing examples, Messrs Ries & Trout do not bother to conduct a thorough analysis of all pros and cons, let alone the specifics of the situation at hand. An unscrupulous author can hand pick cases that illustrate his statement, while overlooking a sea of those that do not. But in the ocean of situations in marketing you can find examples of virtually whatever, including mutually exclusive ones. Also, the authors never delineate the domains of validity of their specific “wisdoms” by tacitly lumping together cosmetics, drinks, software, rolling mills B2B and B2C, and what not. Some of their dogmas are cloned from one book to another others contradict dogmas they expound in their other writings. Philosophy and methods of the bookĪs is customary with the authors, they do not support their statements with data and statistics. Instead, they made a further attempt at a rigid dogmatization. Or they could refute suggestions that marketing is love for the Client and remind the dissidents that marketing is primarily a rigid war with the competitors. Well, if the authors wanted to add a further feather to their publishing cap, they could as well supply dozens of examples of practical positioning - that exercise would be welcomed by manufacturers of thousands of ho-hum products wondering how, the heck, they are gonna “position” their nuts and bolts. It reminded me of Bolshevik texts I had had to read during my Soviet student days: they also expounded fascinating theories that had had nothing to do with real life. That is to say it is a remarkable piece of marketing fantasy. The book is said to be enjoying fantastic sales. But who cares!)Įxuberant academic reviewers have already christened the “22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” a Bible of marketing. (True, some reviewers suggested Law # 23 - there is nothing immutable in marketing.
22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF MARKETING WITH EXAMPLES SERIES
The equivocal laurels of alchemists seem to have been an envy of two venerable authors of a series of marketing bestsellers, Al Ries and Jack Trout, for more than 25 years - so they claim! As a result of their Herculean exertions, the humanity has gotten a most valuable offering in the form of all of 22 "immutable" laws of marketing. The most striking of them is “Sheer weight of marketing dollars increases the probability of new product success.” The reader can imagine the caliber of other “principles,” which have not passed such a rigorous selection. An “academic” paper “Principles of Marketing” identifies only three “principles” that have allegedly passed through the strictest of screenings. Like medieval alchemists, they are in perpetual quest for the non-existent “absolute” - some laws, paradigms, and schemes into which they could neatly squeeze all the marketing situations without exception. For instance, better distribution and logistics may compensate for poor marketing decisions, and vice versa.īut some denizens of the marketing ivory tower could not disagree more. Second, any result in business is generally an outcome of joint efforts of many departments, so that it is often impossible to attribute anything solely to a marketing idea. First, marketing situations are subject to a zillion of circumstances with the result that what works in one situation may not work in others - precisely what makes “a rigid dogmatization” in principle impossible in marketing. There is not, and cannot be, any rigid and lasting interpretation of what the marketing concept means in the specific ways a company should operate at any given time.” It gets dogmatized, interpreted into constantly narrower and inflexible prescriptions…. THE LATE MARKETING wizard Theodore Levitt lamented: “The problem with the marketing concept is a persistent tendency toward rigidity. “22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk” by Al Ries and Jack Trout - ReviewĪ review by Alexander Repiev, Moscow, RussiaĪ delusion does not stop to be a delusion
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