It is believed that building your own business is impossible without proper motivation. At the same time, her role is often played not only by the notorious dream of getting rich or asserting herself, but also by specific examples of successful people. It is precisely such citizens that the book “Marketing Wars” describes, which has not lost its popularity among business representatives for over 20 years. What is special about this edition? What does it say? And what do readers think of him?
General information about the book
The book with a wonderfully telling title was first written in 1986, published by Al Rice and Jack Trout (see photo below). It is noteworthy that both writers were real marketers who managed to succeed in their business.
For the basis of their future bestseller, the authors took the theory that the Prussian officer and military writer Carl von Clausewitz once expressed in his scientific works “On War”. According to this theory, in his work "Marketing Wars"writers drew an analogy between real combat operations and imaginary financial competitions among large corporations. In their opinion, this connection is obvious, and they call the author of the theory the greatest marketing strategist in history.
What is the main purpose of the book?
The purpose of writing "Marketing Wars", including the indication of the reasons, the authors describe in detail in the preface. In it, they talk about the readiness of large corporations to fight for leadership, not disdaining even the dirtiest methods of struggle.
According to them, the book "Marketing Wars" is a kind of manual for large and small entrepreneurs who want to build their own business, are not afraid of competition and just "want to survive."
The publication provides specific examples of doing business with all the ensuing consequences.
E. Rice and D. Trout Marketing Wars Summary
The sensational publication deals with modern marketing. Moreover, readers are invited to look at the struggle between corporations from a completely different angle.
The book talks about the very essence of marketing, which, according to the authors, comes down not to customer service, but to the use of various tricks and tricks to help bypass and overtake competitors' companies. Moreover, marketing in this case is presented as the conduct of some kind of hostilities between representatives of large businesses for the territory, which is played by the entire client audience.
What marketing strategies do they offerauthors?
In addition to useful advice, E. Rice and D. Trout ("Marketing Wars" - one of the most famous publications of the authors) talk about existing marketing strategies. According to them, they are of the following types:
- offensive;
- defensive;
- partisan;
- flank.
Based on the aforementioned marketing book, an offensive strategy is to find talented generals for two or more large competing companies. At the same time, the main tasks of the found commander are to search for and skillfully use the enemy’s weak side.
Defensive tactics involve the game of a major marketing leader. It is noteworthy that the strategy is based on the attack not of the selected enemy (competing company), but of oneself. In addition, according to this tactic, a strong corporation must see and prevent a competitor's attack in a timely manner and do everything to make it fail miserably.
Guerrilla and flanking tactics
About guerrilla tactics, Jack Trout and his co-author write the following: almost all players in the marketing war are required to conduct covert activities. The fact is that many companies, which are very far from the leaders in a serious financial race, will only be able to count on success if they do not fight openly. According to the authors, they will greatly succeed by waging a guerrilla war.
Flanking tactics, as it turned out, directly depends on the successfully chosen moment. Moreover, it must not only be defined, but alsomake adjustments to it. In other words, if there are gaps in the analysis of the segment market for one company, they must be filled by the corporation of its competitor. And of course, here, as in a real war, everything depends on the element of surprise.
Which big companies are mentioned in the book?
As major players, Al Rice and D. Trout mention the leaders of carbonated soft drinks, fast food, beer production and sales, IT technologies and many others. For example, in the work of the authors we are talking about a real war between such titans as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The competition between these two companies is so great that it entails a century-old confrontation.
The book on "Marketing Wars" first compares these brands and then describes how they fight each other. So, according to the authors, the taste qualities of both drinks are approximately the same. But Coca-Cola keeps its composition a secret, and Pepsi, on the contrary, writes on every label. But that's not even the point.
Both firms prefer to fight on the advertising field, using the media, billboards, signs and other attributes. Moreover, their fight, according to Jack Trout, is very serious. As soon as one participant in the war makes a video that partially ridicules a competitor, the second one creates his own video in response.
Well, then both leaders start to compete, creating a new bottle, working on improving the formula, as well as coming up with various promotions with prizes and win-winlotteries.
Interestingly, it is Pepsi that is leading the offensive. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, most often ignores such attacks, choosing to wait and see. But if the company responds, then it does it big.
Confrontation between fast food leaders
Another prominent example of military action mentioned in the book "Marketing Wars" is the longstanding confrontation between McDonald's and Burger King fast food restaurants.
At the same time, competitions between organizations also take place due to advertising. For example, there is a case when the Burger King restaurant placed its banner near the entrance to McDonald's. Moreover, it depicted a large hamburger with the inscription "Feel the taste, not the smack" and there was an arrow pointer towards the Burger King restaurant. Thus, the company managed to ridicule the competitor and attract the attention of customers.
Somewhere in the 80s, the marketing wars between the leaders reached their climax. At this time, Burger King made a real blow in the stomach to its eternal competitor by filming a frankly provocative video. In it, young actress Sarah Michelle Gellar ate a burger and talked about Burger King having 20% more meat than McDonald's.
In response to such a daring move, representatives of a competitor sued not only the company itself, but also the actress, as well as the advertising agency that developed the script for the video.
War between Apple and Samsung
Consideringexamples from a book on marketing, one cannot fail to mention such major players in IT technologies as Samsung and Apple. Both companies chose flanking tactics. For example, after the release of the iPhone 4, Apple began to receive a lot of indignation and criticism regarding communication outages.
Having learned about this failure of the eternal rival, Samsung immediately created a whole line of Galaxy S. At the same time, she sent the novelty free of charge to the most famous English bloggers, who, in fact, wrote about Apple's shortcomings.
At the same time, Samsung launched promotional support for the Galaxy S, using communication icons instead of the letters LL in the word Hello. Thus, the company promoted its products and mockingly counterfeited a competitor.
Struggle between car leaders
The publication "Marketing Wars" also tells about the automotive giants, who often compete with each other. A striking example of this is the confrontation between Audi, Porshe and Nissan.
These manufacturers, like their previous competitors, use advertising as a weapon. For example, the most successful marketing move is considered to be Nissan, which chose an alternative comparison with competitors as a strategy. To this end, she launched Audi and Porshe cars around the cities of England, accompanying them with inscriptions: “More expensive, slower and not as powerful as the Nissan 370Z” and “I want to be as fast as the Nissan 370Z.”
What was the response to this publicity stunt from Audi and Porshe, in the bestseller "Marketing Wars" (reviews and discussion about thisworks to this day do not fade away) is not said. But, most likely, the companies did not ignore this move.
BMW's spectacular 2003 advertisement made a splash. According to the idea of marketers, a bright photo session was made, during which the BMW X5 in the guise of a predatory jaguar was chasing a Mercedes ML in the guise of a swift zebra.
Examples from the life of domestic brands
Looking at major foreign representatives, domestic marketing is also gradually developing (teaching this simple science today is very popular among students from different countries). At the same time, employees of Russian companies and their representative offices do not lag behind their foreign counterparts. For example, recently a fight took place between Unilever Rus and Nestle. And it was truly a culinary duel. Thus, the first of the players released an advertising video for chicken broths TM "Knorr", in which it was mentioned twice that it was necessary to cook without magic. And at the end of the video, a certain slogan sounded: “Real soup. No magic.”
What are users' opinions about the book?
Despite the fact that a lot of time has passed since the publication and translation of the book into Russian, people still talk about it. For example, one of the employees of the marketing department writes that he is impressed with the publication. In his opinion, the book talks about really working methods that many large and small companies use today. Moreover, the user expresses his regret that he did not read the publication earlier.
Another user also describes his first encounter withbook. From his words, it becomes clear that he positions the publication as a kind of textbook, on the basis of which he managed to complete a full marketing training.
The third claims that the book is written in clear language and contains a number of specific examples with colorful illustrations. The fourth liked the non-standard approach of the authors, using comparisons of real combat operations and live competition between companies. Some readers, who have studied the book from cover to cover, consider the marketing methods used by the authors irrelevant.
In a word, the book about "Marketing Wars" impressed some and some did not. Someone found in it a lot of useful advice, while another considers it inappropriate and outdated. Be that as it may, the publication is worthy of attention. After studying it, you will find in it what will interest you.
