The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! Paperback – April 27, 1994

I'd read the book when it was best seller. I recently found it referenced in an interesting context and decided to read it again.The re-read made me feel like a business strategy time traveler.This 13-some-year-old book for “Marketing” was written when the Sales, Marketing and Biz Strategy organization was silo'd. The ‘22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’ is once again making its way through academics and biz leaders as common wisdom for the whole modern enterprise. It's a guide book that should be titled "Never Do This!" while hinting at the remarkable strategies that bring us today's top brands.‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’ is a quick read. The management and strategy job has evolved in interesting ways from this books timeframe. The day of the “Ad Man” fronting your enterprise’s value proposition to customers is over. The “Sale!” is made after a carefully engineered organizational effort. Marketing strategy is a discipline to be trained among everyone that answers an outside phone. Everyone now has a marketing role and here is not a bad place to start spreading the news.A hugely entertaining element is simply that the reader has been fast forwarded through corporate strategies tried, failed and successful. Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, Amiga, Emery Air vs FedEx, Tandem, Wang ... all without smart phones or vast system networks ... strategy winners and losers make for a forensic business case ... if you've been around awhile, you won't believe the book was written just 15 years ago.

The author has a great writing style as he delivers the information with pure value no fluff, making it easy and satisfying to read. The laws all make sense and complement each well with no contradictions.

The authors wanted this books main objectives to be straight forward. They wanted to clearly list the twenty-two laws that they have come up with to help people avoid making marketing mistakes in the first place. They wanted to open up peoples minds to these marketing laws by being straight forward to their audience and relating and using examples that everyday people know. The authors clearly label each step that is used in marketing with each chapter being each law. The chapters are clear and to the point, with examples and brands that most people know. Ries and Trout may straight forward list these “22 Immutable Laws of Marketing,” but in the entire book they don’t tell you how to apply these to your own business really. This makes me think that they are just trying to market their own book, and the brands that are talked about in it. To quote the book itself, “There us 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 customers or prospect. The perception is the reality. Everything else is an illusion (“Chapter 4”).” The authors may list all of the laws they believe cannot be ignored in marketing, like the laws of leadership, exclusivity, sacrifice, hype and resources to name a few. They then break down each section naming successful and unsuccessful brands and companies that have done each of these ‘laws’ that are unchangeable. They provide a range of topics and ideas to support their reasoning. The book is clearly written for people just starting out in marketing and it goes back to the basics. It is very easy and a fast read. The book may have been written in 1993, but it still has relevant knowledge that can sometimes be over looked by marketers who repeated do the same things. The authors took something that might normally only be broken down into what is known as the “Six P’s of Marketing” and broke Marketing down into twenty-two steps. Some may say this is not needed and drug out, but I think it gives a different outlook on the topic. A quote from the book might explain the either possible love or hate of this book, “When you try to be all things to all people, you inevitably wind up in trouble (“Chapter 12”).” This book, The 22 Immutable laws of Marketing, was a simple read. I enjoyed it and I can take away several things that I did not know before about marketing. The laws might not be ground breaking, but they can be simply overlooked at times.

This was a very meaty book. It’s an easy read but filled with lots of helpful information. I really appreciated that I didn’t have to search for the one nugget of gold buried in a bunch of fluff. It was all worthwhile and therefore very enjoyable to read. I even took notes so the lessons would not be forgotten.

This short book is a breath of fresh air and takes anyone interested in marketing their business or personal brand on a journey of common senseRequired reading for every solopreneur.

This book is sensational. Compact and crammed with salient philosophy. The scenarios they present make obsolete conventional marketing.Just today I read an article in WSJ that said Chevrolet truck sales are down, and they are taking shots at the leader, Ford's F-150. They used a "nifty" ad that shows concrete being dumped in each trucks bed. Silverado had barely scratched paint and a few dents, but 150 had holes punched through the floor. Conventional marketing. Completely useless!You can't change peoples minds... just about every dude I know ( and me) considers F-150 the best. It's the perception that counts. It wouldn't matter if the Silverado was better. Ford scoffed at the marketing "stunt" as well they should. 150 will stay the leader indefinitely. Why didn't Chevrolet's marketing people read this book? They could have saved a whole bunch of money by not doing this campaign.Parts of this book are so brilliant, and dense, that I found myself reading certain paragraphs several times to really grasp the concepts. I have several of the author's books, they are all excellent. The only flaw is that this book is 30 years old, so some predictions of certain businesses' prospects didn't come true. Did you ever try to change a woman's mind? Right. That's the rub. Once people think of a product or service as best, it is very difficult to change their minds down the road.