Review: Outsmart the MBA Clones–The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Information Operations
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MBA ClosnesGold Standard for Marketing a Brand, January 22, 2008

Dan Herman

This is a five-star book. Amazon won't let us change the stars. I realized I was imposing my ethics in taking away one star. For what it seeks to do, this is a five-star book.

This is a well-written book, ably illustrated, that is easy to read and appreciate. A few flyleaf notes:

+ Real-time branding, leveraging opportunities instead of plans

+ Accelerated world, focus on customer psyche

+ Price is NOT a strategic obstacle or advantage

+ Differentiation is everything (at the 5% level)

+ Promotional campaigns of dubious value

+ Good management is not strategy

+ Market research flawed for its focus on aggregate (group) statistics instead of psychology of the individual consumer

+ Vision plus values can make a difference

+ Identify, Invent, Implement

+ Stellar use of examples through-out the book

+ Opportunity scan: content, consumers, market, competitors, us (from outer circle to inner sweet spot)

+ Very useful and thoughtful lists, easy to understand and reflect upon

+ 15 stages of consumption within which differentiation can occur

+ Loyalty bankruptcy a challenge

+ Hypnotic branding and Fear of Missing Out both can be leveraged

Although I am a long-term strategist and focused on saving the Earth for my three boys and future generations, there is no question but that this book is the gold standard in short-term branding and market exploitation for short-term profit. It was worth my while.

Other books of possible interest:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (Bk Currents)
The Ecology of Commerce
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming

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