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Posted Dec. 12, 2008 5:10 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Book Awards - 800 CEO Read Blog
The books on our 2008 shortlist for the Advertising & Marketing Category are:
Companies put a lot of effort and money into their brands, which can sometimes be higher than the value they place on their customers. As this occurs, the number of quality performing brands decreases. According to Gerzema and Lebar, this is the brand bubble, and the result could have a serious blow to the economy. This powerful book addresses marketing's impact on the economy, the potential pitfalls of that impact, and then outlines a detailed 5-stage process for companies to follow to create a great return for its shareholders. Psychology plays a big role in marketing, and understanding the complexity of its role can help marketers launch products, enhance experiences, and communicate effectively with their audience. Through many examples and psychological explanations (PhD not required), the authors show that by utilizing "deep metaphors" within a marketing strategy, we can create a situation where consumers are more comfortable and feel connected to a product and company. As the marketplace continues to become flooded with new products, marketers and advertisers are finding even more ways to position them and grab the attention of consumers. This overload is what Conley refers to as "OBD," and as we continue to buy, it's also affecting us in ways we might not expect. From the psychological audio of the Xbox, to the "church" of Target, Conley examines and reveals the corporate illusions that compete for the space of our lives.
by John Gerzema and Ed Lebar (Jossey-Bass, October 2008)
by Gerald Zaltman & Lindsay H. Zaltman (Harvard Business Press, May 2008)
by Lucas Conley (PublicAffairs, June 2008)
Made World
by Kelly Mooney & Nita Rollins (New Riders Publishing, March 2008)
With the Internet, individuals have the ability to shape how we perceive brands more than ever before. Technology has created a liberated and empowered world. Some companies recognize and encourage this empowerment, and others do not. Guess who wins? The Open Brand is a well designed, thought provoking book about how companies can utilize their fans to help build their brands in ways much more powerful than ad land could ever offer.
by David A. Aaker (Harvard Business Press, October 2008)
In large organizations, Chief Marketing Officers are responsible for creating and managing an effective marketing strategy through culture, process, and people. These same organizations may have multiple CMOs, at different branches, in different parts of the world, with different market needs and demands. Aaker's Spanning Silos deals with how to properly manage that process so that all marketing teams, or "silos" are aligned.
strategy + business Best Books of 2008
Posted Dec. 4, 2008 5:07 a.m. by dylan
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog
Always anticipated, strategy + business has published their Best Business Books 2008. What makes this list special is that they assign each category to an expert in that field for review, and each reviewer delivers a lengthy and in depth essay on the books chosen. I've linked each category to it's reviewer's essay at the top of each section. The books starred are those selected as the category's best, what is referred to as s+b's top shelf.
Strategy: Fast Competition and Flat Denial by Phil Rosenzweig
- *The Red Queen among Organizations: How Competitiveness Evolves by William P. Barnett, Princeton University Press
- Sony vs. Samsung: The Inside Story of the Electronics Giants' Battle for Global Supremacy by Sea-Jin Chang, Wile
- Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter by Pankaj Ghemawat, Harvard Business School Press
- Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller by Steve Weinberg, W.W. Norton
- *Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times by Willie Brown, Simon & Schuster
- The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg, Random House
- Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History by Ted Sorensen, HarperCollins
- *Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Harvard Business Press
- Always On: Advertising, Marketing, and Media in an Era of Consumer Control by Christopher Vollmer, with Geoffrey Precourt, McGraw-Hill
- Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion by Lucas Conley, PublicAffairs
- *White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters` by Robert Schlesinger, Simon & Schuster
- Jacked Up: The Inside Story of How Jack Welch Talked GE into Becoming the World's Greatest Company by Bill Lane, McGraw-Hill
- Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation by Gina C. O'Connor, Richard Leifer, Albert S. Paulson & Lois S. Peters, Jossey-Bass
- Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Updated & Expanded) by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams, Portfolio
- Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk by James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, Princeton University Press
- *Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back by John Kao, Free Press
- *The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East by Kishore Mahbubani, PublicAffairs
- Operation China: From Strategy to Execution by Jimmy Hexter & Jonathan Woetzel, Harvard Business School Press
- The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage by Alexandra Harney, Penguin Press (Jack Covert Selects)
- A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein, Atlantic Monthly Press
- Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty by Peter Cappelli, Harvard Business Press
- Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage by Edward E. Lawler III, Jossey-Bass
- *Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen, McGraw-Hill
- Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-line Employee by Alex Frankel, HarperCollins
- The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World by John Elkington & Pamela Hartigan, Harvard Business Press
- The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community by Stephen A. Marglin, Harvard University Press
- *Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus, PublicAffairs (Jack Covert Selects)
- Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block, Berrett-Koehler
- Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann, Wiley
- The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies by Steve Miller, Collins
- Doing What Matters: How to Get Results That Make a Difference--The Revolutionary Old-school Approach by James M. Kilts, with John F. Manfredi & Robert L. Lorber, Crown Business
- *Family Wars: Classic Conflicts in Family Business and How to Deal with Them by Grant Gordon and Nigel Nicholson, Kogan Page
- *Myself and Other More Important Matters by Charles Handy, AMACOM (Jack Covert Selects)
- The Craftsman by Richard Sennett, Yale University Press
- From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession by Rakesh Khurana, Princeton University Press
- Minding the Store: Great Writing about Business from Tolstoy to Now edited by Robert Coles & Albert LaFarge, The New Press
We've been following this list since 2003. The previous years' lists are below.
2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007
Consumer or Consumed? BusinessWeek reviews two books about brands
Posted June 27, 2008 6:27 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Marketing - 800 CEO Read Blog
Yesterday Dylan did a nice job of summing up the latest reviews and discussions about business books in business magazines. Sometimes it's hard for us to keep up with everything, so here's one from a few weeks ago.
In the June 19 issue of BusinessWeek, writer Susan Berfield reviewed two books that "explore the question of whether brands control us, or vice versa": Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker, and Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion by Lucas Conley. (Image source=BusinessWeek.com)
Here's a snippet from the article:
My girl's request [for a Go-Gurt in her lunch]--fleeting, trivial, and unrepeated--nonetheless says something profound about our high-impact, omni-consuming culture. But what? Is she--are we all--just easy marks? Or is there a more complex dynamic between the marketer and the mark? Rob Walker, the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, argues for the latter view. Walker, who writes the "Consumed" column in The New York Times Magazine, offers a sophisticated and sometimes lighthearted take on how consumers interact with brands, defining and controlling them as companies struggle to keep up. By contrast, Lucas Conley, a contributing writer for Fast Company, takes a grimmer view. His book, Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and The Business of Illusion, is a bleak assessment of how defenseless we are against ad creep, as he calls it.
Check out the BusinessWeek article to see which perspective Berfield tends to agree with more.
