50 Kotarbinski's Marketing Laws

Inspired by Murphy’s Laws :)

1. The number and urgency of major modifications to the marketing plan is inversely proportional to the time remaining to the presentation before the company’s management board.

2. If your boss sees the competitor’s trade fair staff, they will always be more effective than your staff.

3. When you submit your folder to be printed out and wonder if you’ve made any mistakes in it, you shouldn’t hope for miracles – just rely on them!

4. Temporary roadside banners always last the longest.

5. Smile! Tomorrow you’re going to slave away even harder!

6. The shorter the time befeore you start a long holiday, the larger the number of marketing tasks assigned to you.

7. Marketer’s holiday should always be followed by a one week adaptation period in order to re-adapt to the company environment, go through thousands of emails and dig through the piles of papers to the blackness of your desk.

8. Every time you just need to polish up your presentation a little bit, new information emerges which ruins all the assumptions you'd made earlier.

9. CEOs are never interested in studies or analysis which cost $50,000 or more. But they ALWAYS show vital interest in selecting pen colour, gadgets or the shape of the logo you’re modifying.

10. The highest authority in marketing for your boss is his wife, mother or lover. And then his daughter. If he’s got more than 5 daughters, then decissions are made by acclamation.

11. The head of marketing in a comapny owned by a father of 5 daughters won’t last longer than 3 months. Unless he marries the ugliest one.

12. The simpler the advertisement you submit for approval the more objections will your boss raise.

13. Companies may be divided into 3 categories: Companies which understand marketing, companies which think they understand marketing and companies which spend lots of money to make their clients believe they understand marketing.

14. If your marketing project fails, the competition will undoubtedly successfully do the same.

15. Ecstatic sex between passionate lovers. And a quickie with a prostitute. That’s about the difference between a real loyalty program and pushy attempts to make a fool of your client.

16. There are no stupid marketers. There are only flea market sellers.

17. A real marketer is like a football. He just needs to be kicked high. Preferably to the management board.

18. Communication between the head of marketing and chief accountant should be conducted in the same manner as building relationship with alien civilizations.

19. A real marketer is never surprised by the requirements set out by the accounting department.

20. The number of gadgets you purchase will never satisfy your trade teams.

21. There are 4 phenomena which hold back the development of marketing in your company: ignorance, stupidity, marketing committees and people who think they’re marketing gurus.

22. The longer the legs of a female marketing specialist the bigger chance she has to participate in an international conference.

23. An idiot-proof marketing department is managed by them.

24. A smooth-thinking marketing team and a rough head of marketing are an unpromising food mix.

25. A rough marketing team and a thinking head of marketing are like a lumber mill which you can hear across the whole company.

26. The more your hands are shaking before a presentation, the bigger the chance that it just won’t launch.

27. The better your flash drive the worse the laptop you’ll get to launch your presentation.

28. Every time research results are presented, a tiny little detail comes up which puts all of them in question.

29. Your clients never know what they want.

30. The longer the commercial block on TV the higher the audience ratings that the TV station declares.

31. The worse product parameters, the more aggressively they try to sell it.

32. The number of complaints related to operations of a marketing department is directly proportional to its budget.

33. You won't find the word "impossible" in any dictionary of marketing.

34. Grumbling is the only way sales people communicate during meeting conducted by the marketing department.

35. The element you haven’t included in your marketing plan will always be more significant than anything you have.

36. The more positions listed on a business card, the less responsibilities the person has.

37. The amount on the invoice for a marketing strategy is directly proportional to the kilograms of paperwork.

38. A good competitor is a bankrupt competitor.

39. Nothing boosts up a company better than a growing competition.

40. You can cooperate with real competitors. But nobody’s even going to go out to the pitch to play against jerks. Wickedness and black PR must be killed off.

41. The value of purchased marketing services is inversely proportional to the project risk.

42. The less you understand from a commercial presentation, the higher the bill you’re going to get.

43. Any advertising agency from another town will be more competent than a local one.

44. TV faces are “PR experts”. Unknown faces are “propaganda guys”.

45. Don't say it, write it down.

46. Present event the most sophisticated strategy in 3 points.

47. The more interesting your project, the more crap they will write about it in the press releases.

48. The more megabits of data is sent by your media office, the more upset the journalists are.

49. A marketing team includes 3 categories of people: Square, round and flea market sellers. The round guys think quietly. The square guys criticize them quietly. The flea market sellers do all the yap yap yap.

50. A marketer who thinks may act a little bit strange. Please excuse him/her.

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION :)

Jacek Kotarbinski jkotarbinski@gmail.com