The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a business classic and a must-read for anyone trying to understand the principles of marketing. As the title suggests, the book is divided up into 22 chapters, each a “Law” of marketing.
Many of the laws follow themes, so I’ve grouped the stand-outs into three categories: Being Top of Mind, Differentiation, and Competitive Strategy.
Being Top of Mind
A primary theme in the book is the importance of being top of mind to your target market. If you aren’t top of mind, no matter how good you are, no one will buy your product. Consumers will buy the product that IS top of mind for them, even if your product is better.
The Law of Leadership covers this theme at its most basic level. It is better to be first in your category than to be better. This gives you a huge leg up on the competition, as it is much easier to get into the customer’s mind if you are the first to enter into that category.
The book later modifies this law through The Law of the Mind. This law states that while it is easiest to be top of mind by being the first entrant in the category, what’s MOST important is being first in the prospect’s mind.
The Law of Perception nuances this theme even further. How good a product is doesn’t matter. Marketing isn’t about the product at all, it is about the market’s perception of your products. The only reality in the world of marketing is the market’s perception of you. Thus, marketing is “a manipulation of those perceptions”. This means that your prospects must perceive you as being first to actually be first.
That said, changing a prospect’s mind is very difficult. If a customer has a perception of your product, in their mind that is a “universal truth”. Marketers can manipulate a perception, but it’s very hard to change a perception.
The Law of the Ladder contemplates that no competitors in a category are tied. There is a hierarchy—a product in first place, second place, third place, etc., like rungs on a ladder. There are a limited number of rungs on the ladder. The further down you are, the less market share you have. There are more rungs in categories where purchases are made infrequently, such as cars. Categories where purchases are made often, have fewer rungs, such as over-the-counter pain relievers. The top brands in pain relievers are Advil, then Tylenol, then Aleve in that order. You may believe each of these brands alleviates a different type of pain. That’s because these brands did something smart—they differentiated themselves against each other. That brings us to our next theme.
Differentiation
If you can’t be first in your category, The Law of the Category suggests you make a new category you can be first in.
The book gives a great example. Charles Lindbergh is well known as the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic. Few know the name of the second person to do so (his name is Bert Hinkler). Many know the third person: Amelia Earhart. She’s not known for being the third person though, she’s known for being the first woman to fly over the Atlantic. In this case, Amelia created a new category she was first in and is now far more well known than Bert.
Going back to our pain reliever example, why are Advil, Tylenol, and Aleve all well-known? Advil is the top brand for Ibuprofen, Tylenol is the top brand for Acetaminophen and Aleve is the top brand for Naproxen. Each of these active ingredients are different pain-relieving agents. These brands have been successful in differentiating themselves against each other by categorizing themselves by their active ingredient. Another book, Blue Ocean Strategy, discusses the concept of creating a new category to be first in a lot more detail.
The Law of Attributes suggests that a brand selects a characteristic of its product that sets it apart when creating its category. But as The Law of Exclusivity points out, two companies cannot own the same differentiator in the prospect’s mind. If another brand tries to own the same word, The Law of the Mind applies. And again, you cannot change the prospect’s mind. Thus, the characteristic you pick cannot have been claimed already.
Competitive Strategy
So, your prospects see you as the first in your category, now what? You’ll have to deal with regular competitive pressures.
Firstly, focus your strategy. As the Law of Singularity points out, one bold move will have strong results, many small moves will not. You can target one key weakness of your competition, then focus that one bold move to exploit it. Similarly, The Law of Focus suggests you narrow the focus of your marketing operations. You’ll become stronger when you hone in on what matters, whereas you weaken yourself if you try to chase many things at once.
Secondly, per the Laws of Success and Failure, ego is the enemy of success. It creates arrogance and hides the fact that the right marketing moves made the brand famous (not the other way around). Remove ego and recognize failure early to cut your losses. Refocus on the customer’s point of view and ignore your own. Embrace failure, iterate, and learn from it. The book, The Five Elements of Effective Thinking, has a great chapter on learning and iterating from failure.
It is easier to collectively own failure as a team rather than pin the failure on one individual. A team will be a lot less defensive to one another if everyone owns it. The group will be open to inspecting and improving upon it methodically and politics are removed. This idea is explored further in Principles by, Ray Dalio via the concept of idea-based meritocracies.