Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace


Noah Kerner - 2007
    In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? How do we do what Nike did? How do we get what Target got? How do we infuse this product with that very desirable, nearly unattainable it factor? In this wide-ranging exploration the authors Noah Kerner, a celebrated marketing maverick, and Gene Pressman, legendary creative visionary and former co-CEO of Barneys New York, have uncovered surprising and universal patterns and trends. They systematically parse the successes and failures of the last few decades -- in music and fashion, magazines and food, spirits and hip-hop culture. Their discoveries are pulled together in this definitive book on the commerce of cool. Nike and Target endure as relevant brands not because of a shortsighted and gimmicky campaign. A dash of bling and a viral website don't amass long-term value. Brands are effectively developed when companies take substantial risk -- and face the possibility of real failure -- in order to open up the opportunity for real success. Chasing Cool includes interviews with more than seventy of today's most respected innovators from Tom Ford and Russell Simmons to Ian Schrager and Christina Aguilera. And through this accomplished assemblage, Pressman and Kerner dig beneath the surface and reveal how emphasizing long-lasting relevance trumps a fleeting preoccupation with what's hot and what's not. In a multidimensional, entertaining, and eminently readable book that redefines how to appeal to today's savvy consumer, Kerner and Pressman explore the lessons to be learned by America's ongoing search for the ever-changing concept of cool. Readers will learn how to apply these lessons to their own businesses and creative projects in order to stand out in today's cluttered marketplace. "Simply chasing cool is really a bad idea; inspired by cool is a great idea. Walk the street, see what's going on, and spit it out in your own way. Don't do it because you research it, do it because you breathe it." -- Russell Simmons, chairman and CEO of Rush Communications "I can't imagine having to hire a so-called Cool Hunter. If I had to go to someone else to be cool, I'd just pack up my bags and find a new profession." -- Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder "It's possible to be both mainstream and edgy. You can be the Goliath but you always have to think and behave like the David." -- Scott Bedbury, former Nike and Starbucks marketing executive "I love looking at trend reports because then I know exactly what I shouldn't be doing." -- John Demsey, group president, Estée Lauder, MAC Cosmetics, Prescriptives, Sean John, and Tom Ford Beauty "I don't believe in creation by committee. I think it's impossible." -- Bonnie Fuller, chief editorial director and executive vice president of American Media Inc. "We had to make a big decision at MTV when I was there. Do we grow old with our audience or are we going to be the voice of young America? We made the decision to be the voice of young America, which meant we had to let people grow out of MTV." -- Bob Pittman, cofounder of MTV, former president of AOL

Authority Content: The Simple System for Building Your Brand, Sales, and Credibility


David Jenyns - 2016
     The fact is, in today's world of constant distractions, most business owners struggle to get their marketing messages heard. Authority Content provides a simple process that any company can use to break through the noise. It doesn't matter whether you're the owner of a retail shop, financial advisor, swimming pool manufacturer or an inventor with an ingenious product - this powerful strategy will work for you. Built on the "3 Ps" framework (Present, Product, Promote) this book teaches you a step-by-step system for building authority within your industry thus sky-rocketing website traffic and sales. You will discover how to: Build maximum Authority, in minimum time Have your prospects, clients and Google fall in love with you Turn one day's work into months of content and share it around the web Write your own book easily and in record time Build your brand, sales and credibility Book website: AuthorityContent.com

The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media


Paul Gillin - 2007
    Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers explores these forces at work, identifying the new influencers, their goals and motivations, and offers strategies for both large and small organizations on how to influence the influencers.

The Canadian Manifesto


Conrad Black - 2019
    It is our turn," writes Conrad Black in this scintillating manifesto for how Canada can achieve an exalted role in world affairs. For over 400 years we have toiled in the shadows of our potential and achieved an indifferent recognition among other nations. Chipper, patient, and courteous, we have pursued an improbable destiny as a splendid nation in the northern section of the new world, a demi-continent of relatively good and ably self-governing people, but most would agree we have neither developed a vivid national personality nor realized our true potential. Our main chance, writes Black, is now before us and it is not in the usual realms of military or economic dominance. With the rest of the West engaged in a sterile and platitudinous left-right tug of war, Canada has the opportunity to lead the advanced world to its next stage of development in the arts of government. By transforming itself into a controlled and sensible public policy laboratory, it can forge new solutions to the tiresome problems besetting welfare, education, health care, foreign policy, and other governmental sectors the world over, and make an enormous contribution to the welfare of mankind. Canada has no excuse not to lead in this field, argues Black, who offers nineteen visionary policy proposals of his own. "This is the destiny, and the vocation, Canada could have, not in the next century, but in the next five years of imaginative government.

Bonfire of the Brands: How I Learnt to Live Without Labels


Neil Boorman - 2006
    As a product of a generation that has been sold to since birth, Neil Boorman examines the social, historical, economic and psychological ways in which brands have gripped our society, as well as documenting his personal trials and tribulations as he tries to live a life without brands.

mobilized: An Insider's Guide to the Business and Future of Connected Technology


S.C. Moatti - 2016
    Everybody knows mobile is the future, and every business wants in, but what are the elements of mobile success? SC Moatti, a Silicon Valley veteran, has created a unique Mobile Formula that makes it easy for any business to develop a strategy for creating mobile products that count. Moatti argues that we so identify with our mobile products that we expect from them what we wish for ourselves: an attractive body, a meaningful life, and increasing competence and ability. So the Body Rule dictates that mobile products must appeal to our sense of beauty but beauty in a mobile world is both similar to and different from what it means offline. The Spirit Rule says mobile products must help us address our deepest needs, both as individuals and as members of communities. And the Mind Rule explains that businesses that want to succeed in mobile need to continually analyze the user experience and use that data to refine and improve their products. Great mobile products replicate and amplify human behavior and interaction, writes Moatti. They don't replace human relationships; they enhance them. A strategy manual rather than a technical treatise, Mobilized includes case studies from mobile pioneers such as Facebook, Uber, Tinder, WhatsApp, and more. The market is full of how-to books for programming apps, but no works examine what is required for business success in the mobile era. Until now."

The Holy Cow and Other Indian Stories


Tarun Chopra - 2000
    Attempts to tell the reader through stories what India is, its traditions, culture, philosophical and religious beliefs customs, etc that are so variagated that it seems there are many Indias, rather that just one.

Strength Training Nutrition 101: Build Muscle & Burn Fat Easily...A Healthy Way Of Eating You Can Actually Maintain (Strength Training 101, Book 2)


Marc McLean - 2017
    If you hate reading those textbook-like nutrition book filled with unfriendly statistics and terminologies, you'll love this. - P Lam. As a personal trainer, I am always on the lookout for new information regarding diet & nutrition for each and every one of my clients.This is a great book if you have any questions where to begin." - Miguel Wells. There are more diets out there than you’ve had hot dinners... There are countless crappy supplements promising the world... There’s all sorts of confusing advice being thrown at us about macronutrients, micronutrients...blah, blah, blah. Wouldn’t you rather just cut out the bull**** and learn a straightforward weight training diet that’ll help you gain lean muscle, keep your bodyfat levels low and maintain good health? A simplified strategy on what to eat, when, what to avoid to get the best results from your strength training program? Something that’s easy to follow and maintain, and doesn’t ban all your favourite foods, while still actually delivering results? This is it. Strength Training Nutrition 101: Build Muscle & Burn Fat Easily...A Healthy Way Of Eating You Can Actually Maintain is a sensible, do-able, manageable nutrition guide for men and women who lift weights (or others who generally want to improve their diet and overall health). I’m Marc McLean, an online personal training and nutrition coach with almost two decades worth of experience in weight training, and Strength Training Nutrition 101 is my masterplan for maximising your exercise efforts. It uncomplicates the complicated and simplifies your weight training diet. Are you confused about what to eat and when because we’re bombarded with so much advice from every angle. “Don’t eat meat...” “Carbs are the devil...” “Eat a garden full of greens for breakfast...” This is just some of the advice we get from experts in a really noisy health and fitness industry. We’re hit with advice on what we should be eating, how much we should be eating...and what we should be avoiding like an STI. This book is not about choosing one diet over another. It’s not filled with complicated bodybuilding nutrition advice or nutrition plans that are too hard to maintain. It’s about getting all the important stuff right and building a solid nutritional foundation for sculpting a lean, athletic, awesome physique. It’s also not about depriving you of food you love and eating chicken and broccoli 8 days per week. The bottom line is that sticking with good nutrition should not be hard work. It should be easy to follow, manageable, and never actually feel like a ‘diet’. In Strength Training Nutrition 101, I share with you how to simplify the way you eat and my nutritional strategies that support my weekly weight training regime for maintaining muscle and staying lean. The book's 12 chapters are below...

The Growth Hacking Book: Most Guarded Growth Marketing Secrets The Silicon Valley Giants Don't Want You To Know


Parul Agrawal - 2019
     #2 gives us shortcuts to help us get results in a short span of time. The book that you are holding in your hands right now is for people who want to sprint on the second path.  The Growth Hacking Book is an almanac for growth in today’s hyper-competitive business world! Curated by GrowthMedia.AI, this book features more than 35 marketing experts, trailblazing entrepreneurs, industry thought leaders and successful companies from all over the globe who share radical ideas on how you can grow your business using unconventional marketing strategies. Each chapter is a treasure trove of growth ideas that businesses in the “The Valley” try to shield from the public.  But they are not secrets anymore. This book is for you if you want to learn about:  The concept of Growth Hacking  The best growth strategies from Growth Hackers for Growth Hackers The mindset, skillset and toolset for Growth Marketers  Identifying and analyzing growth channels  The future of Growth Marketing  ...and more. The fact that you are examining to buy this book is proof that you are hungry to learn growth marketing tactics.  It proves the maxim that says — you don’t choose a book; the book chooses you. Our Contributing Authors: Amit Kumar Arun K Sharma Badr Berrada Christian Fictoor Deep Kakkad Deepak V.

This Won't Scale: 41 Plays From The Drift Marketing Team To Help Your Business Cut Through The Noise, Grow Faster Than The Competition & Thrill Your Customers


Dave Gerhardt - 2019
    While most B2B startups obsess over scalability and tracking, Drift takes a different approach. In This Won't Scale, you'll find insider lessons and plays from the Drift Marketing team that have helped the business grow at a hypergrowth rate. It contains 41 plays organized into easy-to-read and reference chapters. Keep it on your desk, thumb through it when you're looking for inspiration and come back to it over time. You’ll discover not only Drift's abnormal approach, but also hear never-before-told stories and learn how to implement Drift's marketing plays into your own marketing strategy.

The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come


Andrew Essex - 2017
    Today millions are downloading ad-blocking software, and still more are paying subscription premiums to avoid ads. This $600 billion industry is now careening toward outright extinction, after having taken for granted a captive audience for too long, leading to lazy, overabundant, and frankly annoying ads. Make no mistake, Madison Avenue: Traditional advertising, as we know it, is over. In this short, controversial manifesto, Andrew Essex offers both a wake-up call and a road map to the future. In The End of Advertising, Essex gives a brief and pungent history of the rise and fall of Adland--a story populated by snake-oil salesmen, slicksters, and search-engine optimizers. But his book is no eulogy. Instead, he boldly challenges global marketers to innovate their way to a better ad-free future. With trenchant wit and razor-sharp insights, he presents an essential new vision of where the smart businesses could be headed--a broad playing field where ambitious marketing campaigns provide utility, services, gifts, patronage of the arts and even blockbuster entertainment. In this utopian landscape, ads could become so enticing that people would pay--yes, pay--to see them. Advance praise for The End of Advertising "In this dynamic little book, [Andrew] Essex challenges brands--even those of us who pride ourselves on thinking outside the box--to think bigger still. He's got me thinking."--Neil Blumenthal, co-founder of Warby Parker "Fresh and timely, The End of Advertising is an eye-opening take on the current media landscape. And along with it, Essex provides a roadmap for how brands can reinvent themselves and navigate this new world."--Arianna Huffington

A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media


Mikołaj Jan Piskorski - 2014
    Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to our lives--from friendship and dating to news and business.What makes social media so different from traditional media? Answering that question is the key to making social media work for any business, argues Miko?aj Piskorski, one of the world's leading experts on the business of social media. In A Social Strategy, he provides the most convincing answer yet, one backed by original research, data, and case studies from companies such as Nike and American Express.Drawing on his analysis of proprietary data from social media sites, Piskorski argues that the secret of successful ones is that they allow people to fulfill social needs that either can't be met offline or can be met only at much greater cost. This insight provides the key to how companies can leverage social platforms to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies need to help people interact with each other before they will promote products to their friends or help companies in other ways. Done right, a company's social media should benefit customers and the firm. Piskorski calls this a social strategy, and he describes how companies such as Yelp and Zynga have done it.Groundbreaking and important, A Social Strategy provides not only a story- and data-driven explanation for the explosion of social media but also an invaluable, concrete road map for any company that wants to tap the marketing potential of this remarkable phenomenon.

Sanghi Who Never Went To A Shakha


Rahul Roushan - 2021
    Back then he was seen just as a founder-editor of the news satire website with no special interest in politics or ideology.The first time Rahul Roushan was called a Sanghi, he felt deeply offended. After all, he held a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Patna University, a post-graduate diploma in journalism from IIMC in New Delhi, an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and was a self-made media entrepreneur.Sanghi literally means someone who is a member of the right-wing RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) or its affiliates, but the ‘liberals’ use the term liberally to deride those who differ with their political and ideological stand, or those who wear Hinduism on their sleeves. This book analyses why Hindutva as an ideology is no longer anathema and what brought about this change. Why did a country that was ruled for decades by people espousing Nehruvian secularism suddenly began to align with the ‘communal politics’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)?The book is the story of this transformation. This is not an autobiography, though it could read like one in parts. It is not even a collection of intellectual essays, though it could read like one in parts. It is the retelling of some historical events and how those events impacted the journey of Rahul Roushan and countless people like him. The book looks at factors like education, media, technology and obviously, electoral politics, which played a key role in this transformation. The book also touches upon some of the personal experiences of the author, both as a media entrepreneur and a journalist.In author's words, ‘This book will be of special interest to readers who just want to badmouth me and the book, but I really hope the same people make an earnest effort to also understand what changed India and all those Sanghis who never went to any shakha.’

22 Immutable Laws of Branding. Abridged.


Al Ries - 2005
    Brilliant, bold, and mercifully brief, this is the definitive work on branding, distilling the complex principles and theories espoused in other long-winded, high-priced professional marketing tomes into 22 quick and easy-to-listen-to vignettes. Pairing the brand-blazing strategies from the world's best -- like Coca-Cola, Xerox, and Starbucks -- with the world-renowned marketing savvy of bestselling author, Al Ries, and his daughter Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding builds on the huge international success of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and provides the expert insight you seek on business's hottest topic in less time than an airplane ride.Find out:Why you will fail to create a brand through advertising, sales promotion, public relations or fancy packagingHow to define your category. . . even if you're not first to marketHow overbranding equals underwhelmingWhy good old-fashioned publicity may be the missing link in the brand-building processWhy giving your brand the right name is perhaps more important than the brand itselfAnd perhaps most important of all:How to own a word in the mind of the consumer.Smart and accessible, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding provides the ammo you need to dominate your category and turn your product or service into a world-class brand.

The End of Advertising as We Know It


Sergio Zyman - 2002
    He uses real-world examples to illustrate how modern advertising overemphasizes art and entertainment and neglects the most important rule of advertising-sell the product. With a keen eye and a no-holds-barred approach, Zyman discusses how advertising died, what killed it, and how to revive it. He addresses the most critical issues affecting any organization's sales and marketing departments, using his time-tested, unorthodox, and sometimes even counterintuitive principles in order to translate key strategies into positive business results. For marketing managers, advertisers, and CEOs, this book offers groundbreaking advice from one of the legends of modern marketing, as well as the knowledge, insights, tools, and direction to transform advertising strategies from hoping to planning, from art to science, from guessing to knowing, and from random success to planned success.