Harvard Business Review. "Illuminating examples and wry humor combine for a delightful read."

Midwest Book Review. "What do WebTV, The Swiss Army Knife, and Miller Lite all have in common? If you said bad ideas, you're only half right. According to the new book The Origin of Brands from marketing experts Al & Laura Ries (The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR), they are also examples of convergence, which should be avoided whenever possible."

The Globe and Mail, Canada. "In laying out the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species set out a metaphor of The Great Tree of Life, whereby new branches arise by divergence of existing branches. Similarly, new species arise by divergence of existing species. In The Origin of Brands, Al and Laura Ries, a father-and-daughter team who have written a number of provocative branding books, argue that there is also a Great Tree of Products and Services in which new categories are created by divergence of existing categories."

PR Week. "Traditional marketers might feel this book verges on blasphemy. The Rieses purport that the convergence of companies and products doesn't strengthen them, but to the contrary defies that natural laws of product innovation and business survival."

Publishers Weekly. "This father-daughter marketing team, authors of The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, believes that evolution is a useful analogy for marketers. Using many examples, the authors explore this notion: Competition between individuals (brands) improves the species. Competition between species (categories) drives the categories further and further apart."

Advertising Age. "Charles Darwin first enunciated in his The Origin of Species that all animals split off from one another like twigs on a tree. Al and Laura contend brands evolve in the same way. ÔIn nature, changes in the environment create the conditions that cause species to diverge. In business, changes in technology and in the cultural environment create the conditions that cause categories to diverge,' Al and Laura write."

The New York Times. (Foreshadowing the book to come more than a decade later, Al Ries wrote an op-ed article on divergence that was published in the November 21, 1993 issue. Here is quote from that article). "Bewitched by convergence mania, companies are concocting a catalogue's worth of new combo-products. Apple Computer has Newton, a combined fax, beeper, calendar, and pen-based computer, for instance. And how about the wallet of the future, the idea of Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman. This product will combine keys, charge cards, personal identification, cash, writing implements, passport and pictures of the kids! Not to mention a global positioning system so you can always tell where you are and how to get where you want to go. Despite all this activity, most of these products are headed for disaster. The reason: technologies and products do not usually converge. They divide."

Amazon.com reader review. "REVOLUTIONARY! Think Divergence. This is my first time writing a review because it's not everyday I get so excited by a book. But this is Amazing! One of those books that completely changes the way you look at the world. So many lights came on. I had no idea what Divergence meant 24 hours ago. Now I can think of nothing else. If you read only one book this year, make it this one. I even paid full hardcover price at the bookstore because I couldn't wait for the info."

Another Amazon.com reader review. "Their work keeps getting better and better. The third reward from reading this book is that the last three chapters of the book provide a methodology (albeit somewhat abstract) for you to follow. You will learn to DIVERGE NOT CONVERGE, create the Category first, then create a brand to be first in that category. You will learn that it's OK to be second in an industry, if you only... well, you'll have to read the book to get all the other details."