WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• Marketing today is all about image, but it isn’t working properly
• Marketing is a science, not an art
• Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department
• Marketers must be accountable to shareholders
• Focus on results, not activities

ELEMENTS OF THE BOOK I PARTICULARLY LIKE

It is full of ballsy assertions such as Traditional marketing is not dying, it’s dead, and Why have marketing? To make money

The section on How to sell the most stuff and make the most money has some helpful steps you can copy:

• How to make positioning a two-way street
• How branding creates identity
• How to stop brands becoming static
• How to compete against yourself
• How to define consumer expectations that your competitors can’t meet
• All the quotes you want are in bold for easy picking:

“When you start looking at exactly how much things cost and how much profit you are getting…you become a much better marketer”

“Narrow how your competitor is defined to a single trait or quality whilst simultaneously broadening yours”

“The old conventional thinking that said that if you grab people’s hearts, their wallets will follow is dead, kaput, finished…people need reasons to buy”

At the end there are the 28 principles of new marketing

• The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often, and at higher prices. There is no other reason to do it
• Marketing is serious business – and increasingly serious business is about marketing
• Marketing is not magic, and marketers do themselves no favours when they pretend that it is. There’s nothing mysterious about it
• Marketing is a professional discipline. You can’t leave it your Uncle Willie or anyone else who isn’t a trained professional
• The marketplace today is a consumer democracy. Consumers have options, so marketers have to tell them how to choose
• Plan your destination. Make it where you want to be, not where you think you can get
• Once you have your destination, develop a strategy for getting there
• Strategy is the boss. Never forget it. Strategy is what controls the “everything” in “everything communicates”. You can decide to change your strategy, but you can’t deviate from it
• Marketing is a science. It is about experimentation, measurement, analysis, refinement, and replication. You must be willing to change your mind
• Figure out what is desirable and make that what you deliver; or figure out what you can deliver and make that desirable. But remember, the former is a lot easier than the latter
• Measure each brand and each marketing region. Do it regularly and often, at least monthly. Marketing must create results
• Ask questions. Be aware, insatiably curious, and creative. Creativity really is a process of destroying old ideas, but that’s okay. Every day is a new day
• Sameness doesn’t sell. The value of your product will be determined by its differentiation from the competition in ways that are relevant to consumers
• Build your brands by using all the elements of image: trademark image, product image, user image, usage image, and associative image
• Use the right yardsticks: focus on profit, not volume; on actual consumption, not share of market; and on share of future purchases, not brand awareness
• Keep giving your customers more reasons to buy. You need them to come back more often and to buy more at higher prices
• Market locally. You have to give all your customers something that appeals to them personally. Global brands are built out of many strong local brands
• Fish where the fish are. Concentrate your sales efforts on consumers who are willing and able to buy your product. Segment the market to help you identify your most profitable targets
• It is significantly easier to increment behaviour or broaden it than to teach or change it
• Think SOB – Source Of Business; where will your next sale or profit come from?
• Don’t be blinded by visible demand. Preference is perishable. Keep selling the sold
• Make sure everybody in your organisation understands the strategy, the destination and the business objectives. Then let them execute
• Find the best available marketing professionals and create jobs around them. You’ve got to have the best people, not the best organisation chart
• Reward excellence and punish mediocrity
• Strategy is your job. The job of your ad agencies is to communicate it effectively
• No single agency can satisfy all the needs of all of your brands. One size definitely doesn’t fit all
• Pay well so your agencies have the resources to attract good talent – but demand results that are clearly measurabl
• Have a sense of urgency, and work with passion. Otherwise, what’s the use of getting up in the morning?