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 jacket.) Today, most small companies aren't bloated with venture capital to buy TV ads, yet the book has little practical advice on how these companies' executives should use public relations, particularly PR's most important role: crisis control. Some readers might resent paying $24.95 for what amounts to an advertisement for pricey PR consulting firms like Ries & Ries. The authors frequently poke fun at the most outrageous TV ads of recent years, paralleling Sergio Zyman's The End of Advertising As We Know It (reviewed above), a more thoughtful critique of current advertising trends. The inherent flaw in the Rieses' logic: time and again they cite ad campaigns for new products that are "off message" and then say how much sales declined; this supports the notion that products and services are sold by good advertising. Although their book is occasionally entertaining, the argument is simplistic and self-serving. Illus.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Publicity first, advertising second: This is the provocative message that marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries deliver with THE FALL OF ADVERTISING. The bestselling authors of THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF BRANDING are back, this time revealing a startling and crucial development in marketing, the shift from advertising-oriented marketing to PR-oriented marketing. Today's brands are born with publicity, not advertising. A closer look at the history of many major brands shows this to be true. In fact an astonishing number of brands, including the Body Shop, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Beanie Babies, Oracle and Yahool, have been built with virtually no advertising. With case histories and a step-by-step plan for creating buzz in the PR era, THE FALL OF ADVERTISING shows readers how to: *Give up the cherished big-bang approach in favour of a slow build-up *Create a category *Use PR to communicate a brand's credentials *Select the perfect spokesperson *Roll out a programme *Develop a healthy relationship with the media Bold and accessible, THE FALL OF ADVERTISING tells how and why publicity will assume the major role in product launches, with advertising solidifying brands rather than creating them. This will be the essential primer on brand-building in the public relations era.