The book: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout
(full title is The 22 Immutable Laws of MARKETING Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, including the caps and lack of punctuation).

Actually, this was a surprisingly good book that made a lot of very well informed, and very true points about marketing. Most of these can and do apply to what we do without any modification. For example, the Law of Singularity states that “Trying harder is not the secret of marketing success.” and “…the only thing that works is the single bold stroke,” further called “the line of least expectation.”

Of course, the book is a bit dated (they make a reference to New Coke, and how they feel that Coca Cola could successfully drop it while delivering a fatal blow to the Pepsi Generation), but even with marketing having changed since 1993, much of this book remains true, and in fact, useful. One of my favorite rules in here that still applies today is The Law of Sacrifice. Basically, “If you want to be successful today, you should give something up.” What this means is that you could sacrifice something to be good at something else. Where is it written that you have to appeal to everybody? You don’t. Take a look at the successful clothing chains. Which stores are at the top of the market? Not the Department stores that sell everything, but rather, stores like Victoria’s Secret, or The Gap, which specialize. Another example is in cigarettes. If you look at the older ads, they always show a man and a woman. Why? To attract female smokers in an age where most smokers were men. Now look at the most successful, largest selling cigarette in the world: Marlboro, which has an ad that is not only focused on men, but on a man’s man: a cowboy. This mirrors a major lesson we learned in the UCD class: Less is more. What can I get rid of?

The point is, there are some general rules out there (you can call them “laws” if you really want to), which could, and probably should be followed. These are well written, have tons of examples, and appear to be well thought out. From the first rule in the book, which discusses the importance of being first, you can see the truth behind these, and how they are written from truth. I Highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their understanding of marketing in any media.