This is a summary of ideas from the book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Normal text is my summary. Text in italic is my commentary. Remember: this is just a short summary and is not meant to replace the book. Nothing beats reading the real thing. The book is short, buy it and read it.
Law 1 (law of leadership)
Being first in the market is better than having a better product.Examples:
- we all remember who first flew over Atlantic or who was the first man on the moon but almost no-one knows who was the second
- Heineken was the first imported beer in USA and still is No. 1 imported beer
- same for Miller Lite, first domestic light beer
Being first doesn’t matter if the idea/product is not good.In other words: being first gives you very big advantage over competition but doesn’t guarantee success. It doesn’t matter that you’re first to market if no-one needs your product or if your product is very bad. Computer industry has counter-examples (first spreadsheet isn’t the dominant spreadsheet, first word processor isn’t the dominant word processor) so you can overcome first-mover advantage, but it’s very hard and requires the leader to make big mistakes.