The 22 immutable laws of branding
This marketing classic has been expanded to include new commentary, new illustrations, and a bonus book: The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding
Stats for nerds
6recommend
17mentions
10people
2007–2023years
71% recommend29% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I’m not that old or insulated yet, and I work in tech. People with any business savvy or sense of digital culture should have known that it would fizzle out very quickly, as it has. This is not how things evolve. I’d recommend the book “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” if you don’t understand why. The network effects of this project are a hockey stick going in the wrong direction.
- That would be a long list, given that I read a lot of books and would generally say that most of the books I've read were worth investing time in to some extent. But for what it's worth, here's a subset, cribbed from my previous HN comments:
Something Deeply Hidden - Sean Carroll
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth - Paul Hoffman
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - Robert Kanigel
Lost in Math - Sabine Hossenfelder
The First Three Minutes - Steven Weinberg
Hyperspace - Michio Kaku
Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit
The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin
About Time - Paul Davies
Time Reborn - Lee Smolin
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
The Hidden Reality - Brian Greene
The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene
Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe - Jim Baggott
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
Three Roads To Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos - Seth Lloyd
Higgs - The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle' - Jim Baggott
Analogy Making As Perception - Melanie Mitchell
Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 1 - Ben Goertzel
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 2 - Ben Goertzel
The AGI Revolution - Ben Goertzel
Hackers & Painters by our very own Paul "pg" Graham
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy
The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder
Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff
Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology - Steven Levy
Ghost In The Wires - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Intrusion - Kevin Mitnick
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstrong
Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes
Charles Proteus Steinmetz: The Electrical Wizard of Schenectady - Robert Bly
Report From Engine Co 82 - Dennis Smith
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! - Al Ries and Jack Trout
Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries
Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition - Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
Marketing High Technology - William H. Davidow
Marketing Warfare - Al Ries
The Discipline of Market Leaders - Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- I'm a Seth Godin fan, and usually recommend several of his books to people who are interested in marketing. But outside of his material, my list of marketing books would include:
1. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
2. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries and Jack Trout
3. Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
4. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries
5. Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
6. Marketing High Technology by William H. Davidow
7. Marketing Warfare by Al Ries
8. The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
9. Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
- Cribbed from an older answer of mine, to a different question[1], but pretty much my "recommended reading list".
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5591319#up_5591574
0. The Four Steps to the Epiphany - it's not strictly about "marketing" in and of itself, but it certainly touches on elements of marketing, and should be required reading for any startup founder, IMO.
1. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore (more marketing strategy / product strategy than marketing tactics, but a valuable read)
2. Lookup the current textbook for "Marketing 101" (or it's equivalent) at a nearby college. Go buy the book and read it, even if you don't take the class. If you have time and money, take the class.
3. The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. I'm deep into studying Chet's approach now, and his book has some great stuff on it. If you can, get hold of his videos from the program he did with Anthony Robbins titled "Ultimate Business Mastery System." You can safely skip the Tony Robbins part, but Chet delivers some good stuff.
4. In Search of Stupidity by Merrill Rick Chapman.
5. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
6. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries and Jack Trout
7. Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
8. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries
9. Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
10. Successful Business Research: Straight to the Numbers You Need - Fast! by Rhonda Abrams. This is good for learning about how to find the numbers you'll want to use to put together a first cut of a marketing plan. Think your "target market" is "screw, nut and bolt manufacturers in the southeast with more than 500 employees"? Then you need to know how many of those even exist, before you know if the market is even theoretically worth pursuing. Think your market is "adolescent girls in Massachusetts?" Then you might want population demographics and birth rates, etc. This is a good basic, (and cheap) book with some good pointers on how to get started on that kind of market research.
11. Marketing High Technology by William H. Davidow
12. How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit by Guy Kawasaki
13. I'm a big Seth Godin fan, I'd say read anything and everything by him. The Purple Cow stands out in my memory as a particularly good one. Permission Marketing is good as well.
14. The Cluetrain Manifesto
Also, I don't have any specific titles handy (I'm out of town consulting right now, unfortunately, so I can't even walk into the other room and check), but just go to a good used book store near you (if you have one) and find a couple of cheap used textbooks on "marketing research" and "marketing strategy". The exact title won't matter, you just want something you can read through and get the high level stuff. You're not trying to become an MBA, just to learn the language and the broad brush stroke overview of what goes on.
Some more suggestions in another old thread:
- Well, if you're willing to throw yourself into the role, somebody has to deal with marketing, PR, strategy, sales, business development, bookkeeping, regulatory compliance, making coffee, taking out the trash, etc.
So yeah.. there are a LOT of places for a non-technical co-founder to add value. Since most techies aren't very marketing-savvy, I'd suggest you go buy every marketing book you can get your hands on, and do a deep dive.
OK, maybe not literally every marketing book. But if you're interested, here are a few items I'd recommend to a budding would-be marketer.
Permission Marketing - Seth Godin
All Marketers Are Liars - Seth Godin
Purple Cow - Seth Godin
Unleashing The Ideavirus - Seth Godin
Positioning - Jack Trout and Al Ries
Differentiate or Die - Jack Trout
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - Al Ries
Repositioning - Jack Trout
Marketing Warfare - Al Ries
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries
The Discipline of Market Leaders - Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Trust Me, I'm Lying - Confessions of a Media Manipulator - Ryan Holiday
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
If this is a B2B play, I'd read Steve Blank's The Four Steps to the Epiphany first though. Otherwise, I'd suggest starting with The Discipline of Market Leaders and then go to All Marketers Are Liars.
What kind of duties would you be doing in a role like this? Writing web copy; writing press releases; writing whitepapers; writing blog posts; recording screencasts & demo videos; setting up mailing lists; running the Web, Twitter, Facebook, G+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Youtube, etc., presence; talking to potential customers and soliciting feedback; developing a marketing strategy, PR strategy, etc; working with your cofounders to choose a "value discipline" (See The Discipline of Market Leaders) and putting an operating model in place to fulfill that discipline; possibly talking to potential investors; talking to potential partners, doing business development; and SOOOOOOO very much more.
- Is it possible? Yes. Is it easy? No. How do you do it? If I had a magic formula for that, I'd be rich. But...
There is a large body of work "out there" on competitive strategy, differentiation, positioning, market segmentation, etc. I hate to say "go off and read this list of 15 books" but I don't think I can do justice to this topic in a HN comment. So, I will, indeed, just give you a list of books to consider.
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Steve Blank
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - Al Ries, Jack Trout
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries, Laura Ries
REPOSITIONING: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis - Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin
Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition - Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne
Understanding Michael Porter - Joan Magretta
Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters - Richard Rumelt
Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile: Use the 36 Ancient Chinese Strategies to Seize the Competitive Edge - Kaihan Krippendorf
Outthink the Competition - Kaihan Krippendorf
Competitive Strategy - Michael Porter
Competitive Advantage - Michael Porter
On Competition - Michael Porter
Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers - C. K. Prahalad, Venkat Ramaswamy
Yeah, it's a lot of stuff. I won't say you need to read all of that, but everyone of those books is something that's influenced my thinking, and that I've learned a lot from. If I had to pick one to start with, I'd say the Steve Blank book - The Four Steps to the Epiphany. He does a pretty good job of giving an overview of market segmentation strategies, which you'll probably want to pursue if you're entering a crowded market.
After reading Blank, I'd go for Crossing the Chasm next, then the whole series by Trout, Ries and Rivskin, etc. The Michael Porter stuff is good, but somewhat dry and academic. The Understanding Michael Porter book is a good introduction to his stuff that is a little easier to digest.
Also note a subtle, but important point... there are two different kinds of "positioning* you'll hear people talk about in these kinds of discussions. On the one hand, you have "marketing positioning" as described in the books by Ries, Trout, et al. This is more about the message you send to the market about your firm and your offerings. Then you have Michael Porter "structural positioning" stuff that relates to how your firm "fits" in with your competitors vis-a-vis the "five forces" and the rest of Porterian strategic analysis. One will influence the other, but they are really two different things. Note that anytime somebody starts telling you anything about your "positioning".
And then you have what Bob Parsons (of GoDaddy fame) said "Don't be afraid to enter a crowded market, just be better than everybody else".
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