In The Fall of Advertising
and the Rise of PR, longtime marketing strategist Al Ries and his daughter/business
partner Laura Ries offer solid arguments championing the latter over the former for
modern-day brand building. Such a stance is hardly new for these two, who have jointly,
individually, and with others written eight previous books on related topics since Al
penned The Positioning Era Cometh for Advertising Age some three decades ago. What's fresh
this time is the dissection of contemporary corporate hits--like Starbucks, Botox, eBay,
and even Harry Potter--that have eschewed traditional advertising and nevertheless soared
to the top through the savvy use of public relations. The authors spend the first part of
the book discussing how advertising lost credibility among consumers as it became more of
a creative art than a sales tool, and the second part showing how PR subsequently
supplanted it in effectiveness. Using the above examples and others, they explain how such
practices can work in various situations (building a new brand, rebuilding an old one,
dealing with line extensions, etc.), as well as ways advertising can still be usefully
employed (primarily to maintain a brand and "keep it on course"). The result is
both provocative and practical. --Howard Rothman
From Publishers Weekly
Marketing strategists Ries and Ries spend all 320 pages of their latest book arguing one
point: skillful public relations is what sells, not advertising. Case in point: the
failure of Pets.com's sock puppet ads. However, in a chapter devoted to dot-com
advertising excesses, the authors never mention that many dot-coms had miserable business
plans and neophyte management. (The Rieses may be counting on the sock puppet to sell
another commodity, as a deflated sock puppet dominates the book's.
Bestselling authors and
world-renowned marketing strategists Al and Laura Ries usher in the new era of public
relations.
Today's major brands are
born with publicity, not advertising. A closer look at the history of the most successful
modern brands shows this to be true. In fact, an astonishing number of brands, including
Palm, Starbucks, the Body Shop, Wal-Mart, Red Bull and Zara have been built with virtually
no advertising.
Using in-depth case
histories of successful PR campaigns coupled with those of unsuccessful advertising
campaigns, The Fall of Advertising provides valuable ideas for marketers -- all the while
demonstrating why
- advertising lacks
credibility, the crucial ingredient in brand building, and how only PR can supply that
credibility;
- the big bang approach
advocated by advertising people should be abandoned in favor of a slow build-up by PR;
- advertising should only be
used to maintain brands once they have been established through publicity.
Bold and accessible, The
Fall of Advertising is bound to turn the world of marketing upside down.
240 pages