Book Review: Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Book: Marketing Warfare

Authors: Al Ries and Jack Trout

Reviewed Publication: 20^th Anniversary Edition (Tata McGraw-Hill Edition, 2012)

Pages: 216

My view: Must read for Marketing students and professionals. Good read for others.

Can Marketing be equated to war? Is the comparison a hyperbole? What does a marketer get out of this comparison, which is sometimes labelled as absurd?

Al Ries and Jack Trout

In their book ‘Marketing Warfare’ was written by Al Ries and Jack Trout in 1986 manage to make this chalk and cheese comparison look very relevant and easy to fathom. That’s the beauty of this book. The book doesn’t try to preach you by using theoretical constructs and unnecessary concepts developed by authors to show their marketing prowess.

The book has been dedicated by authors to Karl von Clausewitz, a retired Prussian General with an interesting ode. The dedication made by the authors have not called the General a military strategist, but have taken liberty to call him “… one of the greatest marketing strategies the world has ever known”.

The book starts with and sticks to the core, which is borrowing strategies from military warfare and projecting them on marketing scenarios. Though there are a few moments where you feel a strategy is being force-fitted to follow the plan, it is easy to ignore these very few instances.

The book is spread across 16 chapters and has been succinctly portioned into sets of 2 to 5 chapters to handle different areas like history of war, marketing warfare with focus on competition and positioning, four principles of warfare based on the company’s position (leader, challenger and follower), historical marketing warfare in specific industry (cola, beer, burger and computer) and finally, various strategies for the companies and skills required to be a marketing ‘general’.

With the help of a barrage of examples for each of the topic, the authors have been able explain each and every principle and tactic in Marketing Warfare succinctly. It is true that some of the concepts would have confused the readers, had they not been subjected to the clear and to-the-point examples from various industries to help them take home the concept.

For a book that was first published more than two decades back, it did seem to be in need of fresh inputs and cases from the current era. The reprinted version of 2012 edition doesn’t add many new life examples which doesn't leave the reader with any other choice but to settle with age old examples, sometimes of companies which have ceased to exist now.

The book, however, does complete justice to its core and does not stray away as per convenience. It brings out a never before explored perspective of equating warfare tactics with marketing strategies and that too convincingly.

Marketing Warfare is a must read for anyone who is interested in learning aspects of marketing, students, professionals or just curious readers.