This book is a bit of a classic. It was first published in 1993 and it’s still relevant today! I picked it up on the advice of a friend, and I have to say, even though it’s a slim book (132 pages), it packs a big impact.
At the same time, I have to admit that some of the references and recommendations in the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing are a little outdated.
So, this review is going to cover some of the more prominent points that got from reading this book and some of the criticisms I have.
This book nicely compliments my last review of the biography of Elon Musk, who is a daring and innovative entrepreneur.
If you’re thinking of reading this book, I’d love to hear from you in a comment below and learn more about the business you’re working for or looking to start up!
Money is always wasted on marketing
I’ve come to learn that marketing and advertising, unlike sales, is frequently a bank balance drain for may young and established companies. It really makes me angry. But, at the same time, it’s life.
Unlike sales, which tends to compensate performers on a commission or revenue percentage basis, marketing agencies, departments, and consultants tend to be paid on a strict fee or salary basis, making it more severe financially if they should make a mistake on a particular marketing campaign.
“Many managers assume that a well-designed, well-executed, well-financed marketing program will work. It’s not necessarily so.”
It seems like companies spend millions on marketing from some agency or manager with a brilliant strategy, only to have it fall flat, because they don’t properly understand the minds of their consumers or target consumers.
You can pay to have millions of people get introduced to your product or advertisement, but it doesn’t mean that millions are going to buy it. It all comes down to conversions.
To me, coming from a tech startup background, this is reminiscent of the book, Lean Startup, which I think spells out the direction that modern marketers should take. They should first establish product-market fit with their messaging and branding with real data (not surveys or an analysis conducted by some consulting firm) before pouring a bunch of money into that marketing campaign.
For the rest of the post, I’m going to list out the 22 Immutable Laws and my thoughts on them.
This is only scratching the surface of the book, so I do still highly recommend buying or renting it if you’re trying to get better at marketing.
1. Leadership: “It’s better to be first than it is to be better.”
I think this point is true, especially if “first” means the first to successfully solve and monetize a problem for consumers, like Yahoo.
However, I think this only holds true if the competitors are only incrementally improving on the solution that the leading company has come up with. If it’s a 10x improvement, then it doesn’t matter who came first as much, which leads to the second law.
2. Category: “If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.”
Yes! This is exactly the rational behind choosing a niche or target market for your business and also reminds me of the Innovators Dilemma, where companies are replaced by young upstarts over time that embrace a new technology or serve a new customer set.
I think that companies like Facebook vs. Myspace or Friendster are good examples of how they set up a new category entirely and dominated that category. Snapchat is also another good example and how it’s heavily challenging Facebook on the mobile front.
“When you’re first in a new category, promote the category. DC told its prospects why they ought to buy a mini-computer, not a DEC minicomputer.”
The quote above reminds me of Elon Musk and how he open sourced Tesla’s patents to stimulate the growth of the electric car market.
3. The Mind: “It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.”
I actually never really thought about this point before. When I think of online streaming, I think of Netflix. When I think of smartphone, I think of Apple then Samsung. When I think of amazing pizza in the area, I think of ____.
Being first in someone’s mind is akin to ranking #1 in google for a key term. When the person does their own search in their head, your business will come up when they are recommending a product to a friend or thinking of where they want to have their next meal.
“The single most wasteful thing you can do in marketing is to try to change a mind… 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. The mind doesn’t work that way. You have to blast your way into the mind.”
4. Perception: “Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions.”
I think that this fact trips up a lot of programmers, inventors, and creators. When looking at a competitor, they think “my product has more functionality or does this and that better.” It doesn’t matter.
What matters is how customers perceive your product and which functionality they care about. If they are looking for fast, seamless, and great customer support, they might not care that it offers API access or that it has this and that feature.
5. Focus: “The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.”
This reminds of point 3. I think there are awesome marketing opportunities when you identify a word that is going to become a staple in the dictionary and then attach yourself to that word and become a leader in the space.
For example, let’s take the term “growth hacker.” A lot of people don’t know what that is still, but for those in the marketing world that do, it is becoming synonymous with a very particular job description and skill set.
Therefore, if you were to create a product that was a leading solution to help “growth hackers,” then you would be discovered when a individual is searching for that solution for growth hackers or thinking of products to recommend to a friend.
6. Exclusivity: “Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind.”
Going back to the google search analogy, there can be only one #1 result.
7. The Ladder: “The strategy you use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder.”
I don’t have much to say about this point. I think it applies more to larger companies, like Coca Cola or Budweiser than small businesses.
“There’s a relationship between market share and your position on the ladder in the prospect’s mind. You tend to have twice the marketing share of the brand below you and half the marketing share of the brand above you.”
8. Duality: “In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.”
I think this only applies to super large markets that are capital intensive. It seems like large markets (social networking, ecommerce) usually has one clear winner or there is a big difference between the #1 and #2 spot. Either that, or there are just a lot of niche markets and brands.
9. Opposites: “If you’re shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader.”
Don’t have much to say on this point. Again, applies moreso to larger companies.
10. Division: “Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories.”
I love this point because it explains why niche businesses are often times more profitable and successful than businesses that are going after a general marketplace.
This quote really stood out to me when the author was comparing the sales of VW in Europe (high) to America (low) “Only the minds of the people buying them are different.”
Often times, companies will only hash out whether or not a purchasing decision makes logical sense. They’ll consider whether or not they have the best product out there, it’s speed, etc. However, they don’t take into the account how the minds of the customers may differ from area to area, which features what people care most about in their product.
11. Perspective: “Marketing takes place over an extended period of time.”
The interesting thing about companies, typically public companies, is that there is a strong emphasis on short-term results over long-term results. Mainly, because the individuals making those decisions want to look good.
Unfortunately, marketing, like all great things, takes time. It takes time to build up trust in the mind of a consumer. It takes time for people to begin to recognize and identify with your values. It takes time to be successful in general.
There will always be a desire to do anything fast, whether that’s lose weight, make money, or get traffic. But, the businesses and individuals that endure take a longterm view.
12. Line Extension: “There is an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand.”
This is the chapter that stood out to me most and that I had the most conflict with.
Line extension is simply when a company takes their brand name, like the Microsoft Windows operating system, and extends it to other products, like Microsoft Office or Microsoft word. Another example would be the way that Donald Trump licenses his brand name across many different markets.
The author argues that line extension is bad for a brand because it confuses the consumer and it’s not focused enough of a marketing experience to do well.
“Invariably, the leader in any category is the brand that is not line extended.”
That’s a really interesting observation, that’s also very true. It seems like the proctor and gamble model of owning many brands and leaving them be is the best route for a company that wants products in different markets.
At the same time, it does work for some brands, albeit, it definitely is harder to stand out in the mind of a consumer as a company if you have google glasses, google search, google mail, google drive, google wallet, and more.
13. Sacrifice: “You have to give up something to get something.”
That means that if you’re going to be expanding into a larger market, the meaning of your brand name is going to change. You may no longer be synonymous with a “cool college social network” and instead be synonymous with a place where you can keep in touch with your parents and friends.
“Marketing is a game of mental warfare. It’s a battle of perceptions, not products or service.”
I also found the author’s thoughts on the difference between specialists and generalists to be spot on.
“The world of business is populated by big, highly diversified generalists and small, narrowly focused specialists. If line extensions and diversification were effective marketing strategies, you’d expect to see the generalists riding high, but they’re not.”
I think this is also true of websites that have a very specific niche or target market.
14. Attributes: “For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.”
Basically, one product usually can have one or two meanings in the mind of a consumer. It could stand for “sexy lingerie” or “comfortable underwear.” It’s hard for a brand to be successful in both, which means that there is aways room as a competitor to disrupt the market.
15. Candor: “When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive.”
This law goes along with anticipating and calling out objections so that you can disarm them and move on to your sales pitch. When you admit a genuine negative aspect of your product, people are more likely to listen to your future points, because your first one was honest.
16. Singularity: “In each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.”
This is a simple way of restating the 80/20 rule. In any situation, usually, 80% of your results are going to come from 20% of your actions. There is an optimal marketing channel.
17. Unpredictability: “Unless you write your competitor’s plans, you can’t predict the future.”
No matter how hard I try – it’s impossible to accurately and reliably predict human behavior.
18. Success: “Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure.”
I am guilty of falling into this trap, and I think that most people who have had success in any endeavor have also. You get to a point where you think that because you think something will be a hit, that it will be a hit. However, that’s not the case.
“When people become successful, they tend to become less objective. They often substitute their own judgment for what the market wants.”
Entrepreneurship is one of the few fields where experience rarely matters. You can be experienced in a methodology that is used to identify a good idea or promising product, but just because you had one success doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to replicate it or achieve another form of success at the same scale.
It all comes back to the data and conducting rapid trial and error learning with real humans until you hit product-market fit.
19. Failure: “Failure is to be expected and accepted.”
You are going to fail often both in marketing and in business. The only real failure is to recognize that failure slowly and to not take steps to remedy it quick enough. You must crawl up piles of failure in order to ascend the mountain of success.
20. Hype: The situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.
This is actually a really important observation and a fatal mistake that I think young entrepreneurs make.
The innovations in the press are not the only innovations that are happening in the world. Trends are occurring without the notice of the press. Also, just because a product gets on the front of Techcrunch doesn’t mean that’s going to be a multi-million dollar company a year from now or even still be around.
The press are in a business too – capturing the minds, attention, and heart of the public. Yes, some are in the pure news or information business to inform society and keep readers up to date, but the majority of the press is just out there to get traffic and monetize it with advertisement revenue.
21. Acceleration: “Successful programs are not built on fads, they’re built on trends.”
It’s really hard in some cases to spot the difference between trends and fads. I think that most trends are disguised as fads like social networking or AirBnB.
22. Resources: “Without adequate funding, an idea won’t get off the ground.”
Yes, this is very true for most businesses, though not all. If you’d like to learn more about a few ways to get your business off the ground, I recommend this article on different sources of startup capital (some are easier than you think to obtain)!
Should you buy this book?
YES! I give it 4/5 stars. I think it will be extremely helpful if you’re new to marketing or if you’re a seasoned veteran.