This book is a wonderful representation of 'Immutable law' #7 - the 'law of extension' - there's an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand.
What was a highly successful marketing text from 10 years ago, has been refreshed by Dr Paul Temporal to add Asian examples, thus effectively extending the 'Ries & Trout' brand.
While it has been successful in freshening up an old tome, it didn't go quite as far as it could have in making the laws more applicable in the Asian context.
The laws themselves range from the obvious: 'leadership' - it's better to be first than it is to be better' and the 'law of perspective' - marketing efforts take place over an extended period of time to the somewhat outmoded 'law of duality'. In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race.
The 22 laws cover the spectrum of marketing practice, with a strong focus on positioning. Which is where this book as a product falls down. Reading the book it's quite hard to figure out who would benefit from these cases.
For anyone already marketing in Asia the cases are mostly quite well known, and presented at a very superficial level. For anyone outside of Asia, they are too simplistic to provide any real insight into the 'laws of marketing in Asia'.
If the target audience was business students or professionals from other disciplines, these laws provide little insight into the realities of marketing a brand or product in Asian markets.
A large problem with English-language Asian-based books is the predisposition to overly feature English-speaking countries. The Singaporean and Malaysian examples in this book far outnumbered the rest of the markets put together.
Separating Asia into at least developed and developing markets and showing how marketing strategies and laws change in accordance with market status would have been useful. As would have been more topical examples of entry strategies that MNCs have adopted in moving into China.
This is not to say that there are not great stories involved. The vignette concept is a wonderful way to back up the 'laws'. But look closer and you'll see that many of them are actually great business case studies, featuring ideas or scenarios that shouldn't be attributed to marketing strategies alone.
There have been some immense changes in business in the past decade, many of which have had profound effects on marketing and the way customers behave. Very few of these changes have been acknowledged in this book.
The marketing industry suffers from a fundamental lack of common tools or practices. Books such as this promise solutions and deliver lessons instead. The embodiment of these laws in the context of marketing tools would be a wonderful way to extend this brand further. And be a great way to introduce better business discipline into the marketing arena.
This book is a celebration of business successes, viewed from the highest level in the context of the original Ries & Trout 22 Laws.
The range of laws show a good snapshot of some of the fundamental principles of marketing, and of business. The companies and cases featured are admirable, but hardly representative of the marketing challenges in the markets in Asia.
Buy this book as an easy reference guide for ideas, cases and, of course, a refresher on the original laws that are still highly relevant.