In Counterintuitive Marketing, Clancy and Krieg trace the high rate of business failure back to bad marketing strategy, and the even worse implementation of that strategy. Excess testosterone, they argue, compels senior managers to make decisions intuitively, instinctively, quickly, and, unfortunately, disastrously.
In this informative and enlightening book, Clancy and Krieg confront these "over-and-over-again" marketers, who don't have time to do it right the first time, but endless time and a company bankroll to do it wrong over and over again. The authors draw from their decades of consumer and business-to-business marketing experience to describe the intuitive decision-making practices that permeate business today, and demonstrate how these practices lead to disappointing performance.
Chapter by chapter, Counterintuitive Marketing contrasts how marketing decisions are made today with how they should be made. The authors give equal treatment to targeting, positioning, product development, pricing, customer service, e-commerce, marketing planning, implementation, and more as they present counterintuitive ideas for building and introducing blockbuster marketing programs.
Readers will discover in this iconoclastic treasure chest hundreds of penetrating insights that have enabled the authors' firm, Copernicus, to transform companies and become a "brand guardian" to the Fortune 500 and emerging businesses around the world. The tools to create exceptional marketing programs really do exist, and they are all here in Counterintuitive Marketing, the ultimate practical guide for any company of any size.
It's not BS--this is the way the smartest people in marketing make decisions. People who cling to outdated ways of thinking and are afraid of change probably won't like this book. The only way to make better decisions about marketing is to take the time to understand your customers. This requires research.
People who skim a few chapters, will miss important ideas. For instance, the authors explain how to use focus groups correctly--as a starting point in the research process. They never say don't use them, they say don't use them to make multi-million dollar decisions. That anyone in this day and age is basing a critical decision on the opinions of 6-8 people is crazy.
This book is the future of marketing. Anyone who says otherwise just doesn't get it.
Bob LamonsColumnist Marketing News Magazine
