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What it argues
Al Ries and Jack Trout published this slim, blunt book in 1993 as a corrective to the marketing industry's habit of ignoring how markets actually behave. Each of the twenty-two laws is stated flatly, explained with examples from real companies, and illustrated with both winners who followed the law and losers who violated it. The premise is that marketing is a battle for perception, not for product superiority, and that most failed campaigns stem from ignoring this fact.
The most foundational laws are the first two. The Law of Leadership states that it is better to be first than to be better — the first brand in a category typically holds a permanent perceptual advantage. The Law of the Category extends this: if you can't be first in an existing category, create a new one where you can be. Together these two laws explain why so many technically superior products fail while inferior first-movers hold dominant positions for decades.
What it gets right
- 1.
It's better to be first than to be better. The first brand in a category builds a perceptual advantage that is very difficult to overcome, regardless of subsequent product quality.
- 2.
If you can't be first in a category, create a new category where you can be first. Category creation is often a more powerful move than head-on competition.
- 3.
Being first in the mind matters more than being first to market. Perception is reality in marketing, and whoever establishes the initial impression tends to keep it.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Al Ries and Jack Trout were advertising strategists and business writers who together developed the concept of positioning in the 1970s and went on to write several influential books on marketing strategy. Ries co-founded the consultancy Ries & Ries with his daughter Laura Ries and authored titles including Positioning, Marketing Warfare, and Focus. Trout, who passed away in 2017, founded Trout & Partners and wrote Differentiate or Die and Repositioning. Together they were among the most cited marketing thinkers of the late twentieth century.
