BRAND is a four letter word by Austin Mcghie

BRAND is a four letter word by Austin Mcghie

In this breakthrough book, marketing expert Austin McGhie urges readers to set aside their obsession with “branding” and instead focus on the real work of marketing: positioning. In fact, McGhie believes there’s no marketing problem or opportunity that can’t be framed as a positioning exercise. He argues that brands are a marketplace response, not a marketer’s stimulus; if that response from the audience is simple, clear and on strategy, marketers can build a brand. Drawing on his 30-year career working with some of world’s best-known brands, including Disney, ESPN, Nike, Google, Visa, Expedia, Best Buy, Microsoft, Anheuser-Busch, Abbott and YouTube, McGhie tackles the strategic essence of positioning and creating differentiated advantage. He deftly weaves the positioning discussion throughout the book with a series of real-life anecdotes to deliver a crisp, clear view of what it means to build a brand. McGhie has written a practical book that will guide and inspire marketers and in turn help them guide and inspire their audiences.

“I’ll tell you what I like about Austin’s work, and why it’s worth readingHe’s written an angry book about what’s not happening in the marketing world. To me, it’s time to get angry and restate what many overlook or just don’t get about building a differentiated brand.”
—Jack Trout, global marketing expert and author

“The same people who think you can ‘brand’ something are the ones who ask us to produce ‘viral’ videos. What’s with these people hijacking adjectives and verbs for dubious marketing purposes? Just as viral videos are outcomes of smart, insightful thinking, so are brands. I just hope the marketing pundits don’t brand Austin McGhie a heretic for his spot-on ideas. Wait, did I say that?”
—Tom Yorton, CEO, Second City Communications

Brand Is a Four Letter Word: Positioning and the Real Art of Marketing

If Sloan Wilson's classic The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit personifies the top-down business culture of the 1950s, individuality rules today. And businesses must embrace this evolution, McGhie suggests in this perceptive exploration of evolving marketing doctrine. With the Internet impelling unprecedented cultural change, cookie-cutter conformity ensures mediocrity; the most differentiated, strongest products come from "oddball entrepreneurs." Contrary to conventional thinking, McGhie argues that a brand is not imposed on the market but is awarded by the market; it is "a consequence, not an action." This shift in perception manifests the need for a dialectic between producer and customer, with sincerity at the core. McGhie draws on his extensive marketing background to show how brands engage customers in company culture and persuade them to participate in the corporate "sense of mission." Whether the reader accepts or condemns McGhie's contention that the model of one-way persuasion is obsolete, the heightened significance of customer word-of-mouth reaction, or its electronic counterpart, seems unassailable. The customer, not the marketer, controls the brand in the brave new world of viral marketing. And McGhie's argument that traditional marketing theories, though still adapting to new media, are not necessarily obsolete should intrigue both industry professionals and marketing neophytes.
—Publishers Weekly

AUSTIN MCGHIE ran a CPG marketing and sales team and a leading advertising agency before turning thirty-five. Since then, he has successfully gotten older, run two more agencies, and built a nationally recognized marketing-strategy business from the ground up before selling it to a global communications company. Today, he and his business partner, Alpa Pandya, happily run a small but mighty marketing-strategy consulting business. Along the way, Austin has advised clients such as Kellogg’s, Disney, Boeing, Nike, ESPN, NBC, YouTube, Levi Strauss, Westin, Amazon, Facebook, Visa and Unilever. In addition to participating in a host of writing and speaking engagements, Austin is the "almost bestselling" author of "Brand is a Four Letter Word: Marketing and the Art of Positioning." Visit him at FindDifference.com.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781599323275
ISBN 10	1599323273
Title	BRAND is a four letter word
Author	Austin Mcghie
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Advantage Media Group
Year published	2012-05-31
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.