The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout is a great book that I thought I had already summarized here, but apparently not.

It lays the groundwork of what marketing is, positioning. Find a space in the market, nee, in the mind of the consumer.

There are ways to modify this, but only a few ways. You can’t be better and hope/believe that you’re going to win the market. You have to position yourself as the challenger brand, make a new submarket, and some other variations are possible.

But even the same product, in a different market (cars and beers are often used as examples) don’t fair well when introduced somewhere else.

The curse of line extension is one that I think I/Queal should be most wary of, be good at doing one thing, but don’t try and broaden it too much. The consumer will only remember you for doing one thing (quick drinkable meals vs providing all quick meals?)

Ok, enough rambling. I will, one day, do a more structured summary. Probably when I have crystallized my ideas around the new business enough that I can say I’ve followed the guidelines here.