Ries did not write this book! What's the point of leaving a review for a book you did not read?

Ries does it again. His no-nonsens approach to marketing rises above the rest in "Future Focus." Ries gets back to the basics of marketing showing how through simple ideas, you can dominate your market. He shows what companies have done to become world class leaders and points out what they usually do that makes them loose their position. This book is a must read for every business owner and executive on the decision making level. Just keep it out of your competitors hands.

Al junto a su hija Laura han logrado sintetizar magistralmente un sinnumero de aspectos a tener en cuenta al momento de crear y cultvar una marca, lastimosamente en ese intento violaron sus propias leyes y crearon una extension de linea para el anterior libro de Ries y sus socio Trout: Las 22 leyes inmutables de la marca. Ahora cuando la gente va a la libreria a comprar sus libros no sabe cual es cual. Los numeros simpre han sido interesantes al ofrecer en un titulo un numero exacto de beneficios para el lector, pero existen definitivamente mas numeros que el 22 o el 11. En resumen: Un libro bien interesante para todos aquellos que tienen a su cargo el cuidado de los aspectos fundamentales de una marca como su nombre, logosimbolo y significado.

I can't believe some of these other reviews. Some guy gave it 5 stars and admitted that he hadn't read it yet! I assume that isn't a plant, because it's too stupid to be a plant.

The book is good, thought-provoking, and has some real insights. HOWEVER, it is a little simplistic, and it's written for the brand manager of Coke. For those of us without 80+ years of brand history behind us yet, some of his advice isn't relevant. Also, some of his conclusions are just too simplistic: "Symbols are overrated and don't matter much anyway" (paraphrasing). Come on. You can't tell me the swoosh isn't a powerful asset, and the authors admit it, but they poo-poo the entire concept.

Section on naming is very insightful. And the hard advice on expansion is right on! Overall, good, and worth buying for any marketing person. But, this is definitely NOT the bible. Come on, people!

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding was primarily written by Laura Ries - Al Ries was a co-author on the book - in case anyone didn't know. Such information is available at their website. I rank this book a solid 5 star book because the insights / examples provided far outweigh any concerns / problems I found with the book. This book caused me to look at advertising / marketing from a different perspective in my daily life which is what I use to evaluate if something is a 5 star book

I loved The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding for the following reasons:

1. It flat out states the importance of marketing & branding, which is important to separate in the readers' mind before beginning. As they state "Marketing is building a brand in the mind of the prospect. If you can build a powerful brand you will have a powerful marketing program. If you can't, then all the advertising, fancy packaging, sales promotion and public relations in the world won't help you achieve your objective."

2. The Ries' call it like they see it. Excellent examples of marketing / advertising stupidity / effectiveness are provided.

3. They talk about the plethora of products that are produced each year.

4. They discuss how businesses must get inside a consumer's mind (AKA positioning) to win the war. Volvo = safety, BMW = Ultimate Driving Machine, Mercedes = prestige, Toyota = Reliability, Ford = ?, Chevy = ?. The Ries' clearly spell out an excellent reason as to why the U.S. automanufacturers are getting killed.

5. The book illustrates, as did the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, how companies dilute their brands through line extensions (I personally believe this due to my personal experience / buying patterns and observations of others.)

6. They point out the increasing importance of PR (public relations) compared to advertising. This is the subject of a new book by the father / daughter. Basically PR launches a product and advertising gives it life support is their main assertion.

I disliked The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding for the following reasons:

1. Overlap from prior books is definitely occurring. I have noticed this with Jack Trout's recent books too. I would estimate that 15% - 20%, at a minimum, of Trout's recent books and this book have been stated in one form or another in their prior works.

2. Some of the examples provide clearly refute other examples provided. On page 100 they state "the Mustang and former CEO of Chrysler Corporation (two powerful brand names.) In prior examples the authors clearly state that the brand is the maker of the company. Volvo = safety, BMW = driving machine, etc (you will find such features in all their vehicles -maybe not in Volvos convertible.) What does Chrysler stand for again? Minivans? I haven't exactly noticed it in their advertising......for a long time...

Conclusion: Buy the book. It is well worth the time and money. Most of my reviews are in business / economics and I encourage people to read them, whether here on Amazon or at my personal website. If you are interested in another good marketing book I highly recommend Differentiate or Die by Jack Trout or Seth Godin's book on permission marketing / launching an ideavirus. If you are interested in other subjects I would encourage you to read The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner if you are interested in economic history - the book is international in scope and deals with the lives and times of the most famous economists in history. If you are interested in economic development / evolution of U.S. property history I would encourage you to read Hernando DeSoto's Mystery of Capital but note his lack of focus on corruption in certain countries. A great general business book is by the management guru Peter Drucker entitled "The Essential Drucker."

Focus. Don't do a line extension to save your life.

OK, this book is great and should be read by anyone involved in marketing (I mean come on, who doesn't have the 3 hours it takes to read this book). Unfortunately one serious drawback is that he uses plenty of examples to support his claims. Huh? Why is that a negative? Here's why: because it gets the reader to think of plenty of counter-examples that contradict his points. As another reviewer suggested the claim of "immutable" laws of marketing is a bit bold, but what the book does provide is food for thought in a highly readable context.

You gotta give the guy credit though. He takes a stand. And there's a lot to be said for taking a viewpoint and standing by it in today's middle of the road world.

If you don't feel up to reading "Focus," "Positioning," or some of the other texts by Al Ries, this one provides a lot of the insights in bite size pieces.

Despite the knocks against it listed above there are a few points worth acknowledging: 1. Al Ries is a legend in marketing. 2. It's a good, fun read with many useful examples worth keeping in mind when developing marketing strategies. 3. By reading it for yourself you can develop examples to refute a lot fo the laws and move along the path towards critically evaluating branding strategies.

While the title promises 11 immutable laws, there was in reality only one law. The other 10 laws were simple mutations of that one law. If you are in a rush, you need only read the first part of the book. You would not have missed much.

The authors are obviously trying to cash in on their brand name "The ? Immutable Laws Of ...". When Al Ries and Jack Trout first wrote the book "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", I thought that the book was very well written. I bought this book thinking that it would be the name. Alas, it is not to be so.

Still, the authors have explained the difference between a good Internet brand versus a bad one. The Internet is an Interactive Medium. As such, the marketer must realise the interactivity of the medium and how it affects branding. The lessons learnt have been quite interesting. However, I still felt cheated as I felt that I have paid for 11 laws but I have only learnt one.

The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding is a valuable guide for those who operate, work for, or invest in e-businesses. If this book had come out 3 years ago, billions would have been better invested. Perhaps the valuations of e-businesses would still be higher as well.

Al and Laura Ries point out that companies seeking to do business on the Internet almost always get it wrong. And those errors begin with their choice of a brand name to use, the services they offer, the form those services take, and the technologies they plan to use. Basically, the authors make the now familiar argument (if you have read their earlier work) that there can only be one winning name in a category, that this name will be a proper noun or two rather than a common noun or two. The lousy examples they give of poorly selected brand names would be fairly humorous if it weren't for all of the money and lives being wasted in an obviously losing effort. One of the most persuasive arguments they make is that most categories will be dominated by one brand, and that brand will be the one with the best brand name (assuming some level of decent service), not necessarily the first entrant. Thus, Amazon.com is praised for having a good name while buy.com is hissed for a generic one. Yet everyone believes that being first on the Internet is the only issue for dominating a category. Wrong!

Since their earlier work called for 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, I was pleased to see that the Internet is less complicated to brand correctly than a typical new product. The main reason for this is that the seller is dealing directly with the buyer, rather than through an intermediary like a bricks and mortar retailer.

The most telling argument they make is that existing businesses have an important decision to make: To either turn the existing business into an Internet-based one (like Cisco, Dell, and Charles Schwab have done), or to create a new brand with an Internet business model to compete with the nonInternet business. Most businesses would benefit from carefully thinking through this point.

The authors also argue that making your Web site more interactively valuable is critical to your success. If you notice that most Web sites aren't, you will soon be convinced that this is advice more people need to read and understand.

This book points out the problem that many people are now operating Internet-based businesses who have little understanding of the fundamentals of how to succeed. This book will be a valuable contribution to the literature of how to solve that problem.

The book is also valuable for its ability to point out the sources of stalled thinking when it comes to the Internet. The issues are more similar to existing businesses than different, despite all of the hype in the e-press.

I like reading the books written by Ries, all of which are excellent. This one is no exception! With the trend of using Internet, many Internet businesses emerge. However, many of them find it hard to operate online. What's wrong with them?

It is good for Al and Laura Ries to first clarify that the Internet is either a medium or a business. It is really a fundamental and important decision for companies to make. They are sure to be greatly benefit from thinking about this question.

In addition, most businesses neglect or even do not know the importance of a good name. With the lack of the good "seeing and touching" visual impact, the powerful tool companies can put in the prospects' mind is a good name. The law of the common name and proper name can give us a clearer picture.

A good Internet brand cannot solely rely on a good name. It also depends on the interactivity of the website, singularity in the category, off-line advertising¡KMore of which can be found in the book.

This book is very clear. The concept is profound and easy to understand, supported by plenty of examples. I can get a lot of insights from it. And it is interesting! I enjoy reading it!

For someone who has not read any of the authors' (especially Trout's) other books, this has some value. For that reason, I rate it higher than do many other reviewers. However, it is inferior to the original Positioning (by Ries and Trout) and adds very little (if anything) that is "new" to the concepts and comments provided in that important book. The value of the original is increased substantially when read in combination with other works such as Levitt's The Marketing Imagination and Barker's Paradigms. Because effective positioning is (literally) a moving target, those involved must be both willing and able to modify that positioning in response to rapid, sometimes major changes in the competitive marketplace. That is to say, new positioning may be necessary. The authors of this book already have an excellent title. Now all they need is a text which is worthy of it.

Some of those who read the original book, Positioning, found this sequel disappointingly short on new information. However, if you have not read the original, this book is worth reading, in part because it applies its own principles to communicate simply and briefly. Case studies are kept short and the central messages delivered efficiently then reinforced. Trout emphasizes the enormous amount of information and number of choices facing people and the consequent need for simplicity of message, and a clear position in the minds of consumers. Trout uniformly dislikes brand line extension, though he does not deal with counter-examples. The first section of the book, Understanding the Mind sets up the cognitive framework for the positioning approach. The second section, Dealing with Change, helps companies reposition themselves in consumers' minds. The third section, The Tricks of the Trade, goes into some specific strategies for penetrating the noise with your signal. There are deeper and newer books on the subject, but the clear message of this quickly-readable book is worth taking in.

You can achieve better brand recognition and sales if you understand how the mind works. Jack Trout (assisted by Steve Rifkin) emphasizes that the human mind is limited, hates confusion and easily loses focus. The authors cite companies that have succeeded in their brand strategy and advertising by following these principles, and a few who failed because they didn't. The book concludes with "tricks of the trade" that you can use. In keeping with these principles, the volume is simply and clearly written, brief, well organized and focused. However, since it was published about four years ago and talks about the beginning of the information age, some of the material already may sound familiar. But if you can ignore that sense of déjà vu, the book offers an excellent summary of the relationship between how the mind works and how best to use product positioning. We [...] recommend this book to marketing mavens with inquiring minds

Maybe I'm just having a bad day but this is quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. I bought this book hoping for an education on what Public Relations offers versus Advertising and how to use this to my benefit. Instead, I received page after page of trite comparisons of advertising to any number of things followed by week, factless reasoning as to why that particular comparison is bad. This book is no more than Public Relations people on a very rickety soap box yelling out self-gratifying opinions. If ever in my life I again read a page that compares advertising to The Buckingham Palace it will be entirely too soon.

Page 19, "You can recognize art by its extensive use in everyday language. Even though the sword has no function in today's society, it does live in the language. Nobody says, 'Live by the gun, die by the gun.'" (end of paragraph)
Wow, mesmerizing.

If you were thinking of buying this book, Don't. If you've already purchased this book, Do not open it. Return it as fast as possible before it makes you less intelligent through the void of reason it exudes and it's proximity to your brain.

If John Ralston Saul ever decided to write a book to debunk the advertising world's groupthink about its almighty influence on the consumer, this would be it.

I read this book on a flight from LA to Toronto and couldn't put it down. I found that this book answered questions that I had often asked myself about whether advertising really impacts sales numbers. If you ever sit in front of the tv and wonder "Who is the genius that thought that ad would actually get me to buy something?" or you get the Energizer bunny confused with Duracell you might find this a very interesting read.

The book is broken down into four parts:

The Fall of Advertising which details various arenas in which advertising proclaims its superiority (Advertising and Car Salesmen, Advertising and the Dotcoms, Advertising and Credibility are some chapter titles);

The Rise of PR in which there is a primer of sorts on how PR can be used more effectively than advertising (Rebuilding an Old Brand with PR, Dealing with Line Extensions);

A New Role For Advertising in which the authors suggest that the bathwater not get completely tossed out with the baby--that advertising does have a place....as a cart after the horse (Maintaining the Brand);

and finally The Differences Between Advertising and PR which gets a little cloying in the use of analogies but is a good read nonetheless (Advertising is the Wind. PR Is the Sun, Advertising is Incredible. PR is Credible.)

What I liked about the book:
1. It has a breezy, shoot from the hip conversational feel
2. There are ample anecdotes backing up the hypotheses--makes for a very lively read...lots of "Oh ya...I always WONDERED about that" responses.
3. It made me really think about how brainwashed our society is about the value of advertising.
4. This book also gave me some insights as to how to continue as I launch my new company...pitfalls to avoid and things to definitely do.

I am not particularly well-read in this field so this was a good intro to the subject for me.It might be too rudimentary for some. I am definitely going to check out the authors' other books on Positioning and 22 Immutable laws of Branding.

The only tiresome aspect I found in the book is the RELENTLESS repetition of the "Publicity builds brands not advertising" axiom. If one mention is good, 43 mentions is better? I would also have appreciated footnotes on the sources for some of the stats and graphs used in the book. Would have added additional scholastic integrity to the figures.

Otherwise, I would highly recommend the book.

This book is arguably the most important book for an up and coming PR rock star. It's a quick and concise read that inhibits the reader from setting the book down. It has an obvious command of research, insight and principle. For those account executives with the mind for vision and strategy -- this book is a must read. Indeed it may just define the future leadership of the PR industry.

The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR makes a credible argument for the brand building function and subsequent market leadership success, which only insightful public relations campaigns can establish. To that end, this book is the application of value-added integration that author Thomas L. Harris discussed in years gone by. This book articulates a vision and path to follow for the public relations industry.

Additionally, Ries & Ries have an unparalleled understanding of task and purpose. As this book rightfully, if not partially, contends, we PR folks should redefine the constructs of our mission and duty description. Perhaps then we can even launch something of a brand of our own.