May 8th, 2008 | 
Author: I’ve picked up a book called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout, and I’m blogging a summary of each chapter.
Chapter 3. The Law of Mind
It’s better to be first in the mind than to be the first in the marketplace.
Being first to market doesn’t really matter if you aren’t first in the mind of the consumer. For instance, the Altair 8800 is largely considered the first mass market PC, but it was largely eclipsed by later PCs such as the Apple II.
The role of money in marketing is important, but this law shows that money isn’t necesarily everying. It’s hard to overcome first imprssions and well-formed opinions, no matter how much money is spent.
The law of leadership still matters, but only to the extent that it usually provides access to the mind of the consumer.
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True. Budweiser wasn’t the first beer but ‘arguably’ it is first in the mind. Again, Google wasn’t the first search engine but it is first in the mind. Matt, I like this exercise. Keep it coming.
Does this book have a chapter on the most important law of marketing: steal other people’s ideas (see: Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Nolan Bushnell, Rob Liefeld, Vanilla Ice, etc.)?
Okay, okay, I’ll give you some money for all the designs I stole from you. Geez!
“It’s hard to overcome first imprssions and well-formed opinions”
I don’t know about “well-formed”. Certainly once someone holds an opinion on anything it’s hard to get them to change it. How “well-formed” that opinion is could be a matter of debate.
I don’t think “well-formed” is necessarily a statement of opinion quality; and anyway, it’s highly subjective to judge the quality of an opinion.