When I first started hearing about Sally Hogshead’s book, Fascinate, I was convinced she had it all wrong. Why would anyone want to fascinate potential customers when they could be engaging and selling to them? Fascinate seemed like the wrong word.

But I’m the one that was wrong.

Sally’s definition of fascinate comes from the Latin word fascinare which means “to bewitch.” When she says fascinate, she doesn’t just mean entertain, she means engage and influence the behavior of others. To quote from the book, “interest is not enough. Neither is awareness, intent to purchase, or having share-of-mind, or any of the other jargon thrown into Power Point slides…” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

This book walks the reader through seven fascination triggers (lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust) and explains how each can add interest and intrigue to your product or service—with the intention of selling more of it.

Best of all, Sally doesn’t just write about the triggers, she walks the reader through the process of identifying the right triggers, developing “badges” to make the triggers work, then gives a few tips on executing on the whole process. There’s a lot to like here (although I get the sense that working through the process with Sally in person would be a lot more effective than doing it on your own with only the book as a guide).

Interestingly, the section on developing badges reads a lot like this post about the places you can look to find a brand story. When it comes right down to it, Sally’s book has a lot to say about creating compelling stories for your brand.

It’s a book that belongs in every marketer’s tool box.

A Few Fascination Links:

• Order the book here.
• Find out what your personal fascination triggers are here.
• And check out a great Slideshare presentation here.
• I’ve written about Sally before, here, for example.
• Download a free copy of Sally’s first book, here.

A few weeks ago, I posted my long-delayed thoughts about The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. In the weeks since, I’ve had the opportunity to exchange a few emails with Todd and asked him about writing the book and what he gleaned from the process. What follows is a slightly edited version of our discussion:

Me: Thanks again for your willingness to talk/write a little more about your book. I’ve been following your projects (More Space, The 100 Best, CEO-READ blog, Fixed to Flexible) for something like seven years now, but for those who don’t know, what’s your story? And what’s the story behind The 100 Best?

Todd: What’s my story? I grew up in a small town in southeastern Wisconsin and went to Michigan Tech to get mechanical engineering degree. I was fortunate to get a job with General Electric, where I spent the next six years learning most of what I know about business. I joined my father in 2001 working in his small sheet metal fabrication business. I learned even more about small business.  I picked up an MBA from Marquette University along the way.

In 2004, I started working for the business book retailer 800-CEO-READ. I spent six years working there and had an awesome time. What I spent most of my time doing was pushing out the message “We are the experts in business books.” The 800-CEO-READ Book Awards, stewardship of ChangeThis, and the creation of InBubbleWrap all were in support of that mission.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time was the best example of putting our stake in the ground and saying we know a lot of about business books. The book itself was something I tried to convince Jack, my co-author, of from almost the moment I got there. “We sell books, which means we know people who buy them. Should we write one?” It took 18 months to get the concept right and our publisher Portfolio was really helpful in that regard.  We signed a deal in April 2007, delivered the manuscript April 2008, and the book came out in February 2009. The book has done great. We are on our 6th printing and it has been translated into nine languages.

Me: Congratulations on the book’s success. What did you learn from the process of writing the book? What did you learn that was completely unexpected, if anything?

Todd: Things I learned writing The 100 Best:

1. You need to be able to tell someone else about your book in three sentences or less, about 50 words. There were all of these crazy complicated ideas for the book originally. We couldn’t get an agent interested.  We went directly to a publisher and they said the same thing: “Why don’t you just do The 100 Best Business Books of All Time?” I said it had been done before. They said everything has been done before and the people who do it right, own it.  They get to own the category. That was enough for me, except that the book had to be more than a list.

2. Great books also have nuance. Great books are easy to tell someone else about, but you remember them for how they capture you. Often, it is the style.  Sometimes, it is hearing a company story for the first time.

In the case of The 100 Best, we went way beyond the initial list.  There is almost 300 additional books that we recommend beyond The 100 Best. We tracked down the cover art and pulled a quote from every book.  There are 20 or sidebars with recommendations on case studies, children’s books, and fiction in a business setting.

3. Writing is a practiced, team sport. Great writing doesn’t happen without revisions or an editor. I don’t know anyone who just creates perfect prose. Listen to anything any writer has every said about writing and they will tell you that you write and rewrite and rewrite again.  And it could be that I am still a cub in this world of writing, but it is essential to have some one else working with me. I write better just knowing they are there.

The unexpected was that I would have never guessed I was a writer. I chose the college I attended based on the least number of english classes I needed to take. That is something I have worn as a strange badge of honor for years. The 100 Best had a profound impact on how view what I need to do with the rest of my life and it is impossible to accomplish that (‘that’ being connecting business ideas in new ways) without being a writer.

Me: I am curious if there are any books that have come out since The 100 Best that you would add to the list today? Which would be out?

Todd: It’s only been a year since The 100 Best came out, so I think it would be premature for me to start replacing titles on the list. I did like Tribes by Seth Godin and 800-CEO-READ named it Business Book of the Year in 2008, but we generally only let each author get one slot (Drucker and Charan were the exceptions).

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

Getting Things Done by David Allen

The Four Conversations by Jeffery Ford and Laurie Ford

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Financial Intelligence by Berman and Knight

Want to know more about Todd? Check these links:

ToddSattersten.com
Todd’s Twitter Stream
Download Fixed to Flexible, here.

A little over a year ago, Todd Sattersten sent me a copy of his (then) new book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You, coauthored by Jack Covert. In exchange for the book, I was supposed to provide feedback. For a variety of reasons I took a hiatus from blogging about the same time and never got around to posting my thoughts. So this is long overdue. My apologies to Todd and Jack.

As anyone who has browsed the Business section of the bookstore knows, there are far more books than anyone can possibly read. If you took all the business books published in 2007 and stacked them on top of each other, they’d easily reach the top of a nine-story building. And that’s just one year’s worth of books. What about the years since then, and the years before? How can anyone sift through that enormous pile and find the books that solve their problem or strengthen their particular weakness? That’s the challenge that Todd and Jack’s book sets out to meet.

And for the most part, The 100 Best Books fulfills its promise. Organized into 12 chapters covering subjects like leadership, strategy, management, innovation, and big ideas, each review identifies the major concepts presented in a “best” book, plus a short section recommending still more books for readers who want to go beyond the basics (this is my favorite feature of the book).

I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the recommendations, books like The Innovator’s Dilemma, Execution, Influence, Positioning, The Art of The Start, Made to Stick, and my personal favorite “business” book of all time, Orbiting the Giant Hairball.  I also found myself making a list of books that I have not read yet, but need to.

The book’s only weakness is also its genius. Unlike the best business books, it doesn’t focus on and flesh out any great ideas. Instead it usefully points you to the books that do explore the ideas you want to know more about. If you want to learn more about entrepreneurship or marketing, this isn’t the book to read. But it is the book you would check to find the books to read.

On the whole, The 100 Best Books of All Time is a pretty comprehensive reading list for anyone who wants to learn more about 12 business subjects (it’s almost a do-it-yourself MBA). And while there are certainly hundreds of worthy books not included in this volume, it’s still a pretty good place to start. It can be read cover to cover, or used as a topical reference for those who want to learn more about a particular subject. It’s worth having close by as a reference for those times you need the right book to read.

Worth a recommendation. Buy it here.

This entry was originally posted on December 28, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog.

One of my favorite web logs is David Taylor’s BrandGymBlog. David’s no-nonsense approach to marketing is one that really appeals to me, so I’m a regular visitor to his site. A couple of months ago I got a copy of David’s latest book, Where’s the Sausage: Branding based on Substance not Spin. It’s a serious marketing book wrapped in a short parable.

Though I really like David’s thinking, I’m generally not a fan of business parables. Too often they use silly characters, absurd situations, and overly simple solutions that don’t always transfer well to real business situations–like this book. Books like this include a lot of “what”, but not a lot of “how”. And when I heard that WTS? was a parable, that’s what I expected to get. But then, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

To be sure, the story isn’t high literature. But this book contains a generous helping of useful marketing ideas, ways to get insights from your customers, and smart thinking (the how in addition to the what). And the characters ring true more often than not.

It’s the story of Bob Jones, salesman at Simpton’s Sausages who is asked to spend a year as a brand consultant before being promoted to Sales Director. He’s unenthusiastic about the opportunity and immediately sees through the typical marketing BS that comes from his boss and agency contacts. Rejecting their approach to branding (and rebranding), he finds his own way as he manages the neglected sausage brand. He records his feelings several times a month (in a blog or journal) and includes much of what he is learning from his experience. The story is okay, but the real power of the book is in the chapter summaries and ideas Bob uses to rethink his product—all of which (I assume) come from the BrandGym play book.

Among the observations Bob makes:

• A brand should drive the whole business, not just the image wrapper of communication
and brand identity.
• A new logo can’t cover up the shortcomings of a poor product.
• Many brand extensions are brand ego trips offering nothing new.
• True insight doesn’t come from focus groups, it comes from immersing yourself in your
consumer’s world.
• Having little or no funds for conventional marketing can be a great stimulus for creativity.
• Communication that has only emotional sizzle and not product sausage is ‘sponsored
entertainment’.

Add to that the simple exercises and processes that Bob takes his brand through (and that the reader can do with their own brand) and you have a decent little marketing book. Thanks David.

If you’re looking for a quick read peppered with smart thinking, you’ll like Where’s the Sausage.

More Where’s the Sausage? Links:
Other reviews of the book can be found here and here.
David’s description of the book is here.
Buy it at Amazon.
Read the BrandGym blog.
Video of Hugo Gaines (the book’s star marketing,um, expert).
Video of David talking about the book.

A version of this entry was originally posted on August 6, 2008 at the old Brandstory blog. Bob’s blog is still one of my favorites.

A month or so ago, I stumbled upon Bob Hoffman’s blog called The Ad Contrarian. It has quickly become one of my favorites. He’s not much for advertising as entertainment. He doesn’t appear to like ad planners. He’s not big on Internet advertising, the long tail, or conversations. He’s an unabashed defender of the power and effectiveness of traditional, interruptive advertising. His blog is worth a read.

But best of all, if you want a copy, you can download a free copy of his book (PDF), described by his agency’s president as “mercifully short.”

Written more like a short collection of blog posts (actually that’s exactly what it is), the book’s a pretty good snapshot of what’s wrong with the advertising world. But it doesn’t take the “end-of-advertising-as-we-know-it” approach that so many others keep talking about. Lots of interesting thinking, criticism, and ideas packed into 65 pages.

Of course, there is a catch. The last four chapters detail Hoffman’s (and his agency’s) approach to advertising, something he calls Performance-based Advertising. So it’s a bit of a promotional piece for his agency. Still, the principles are good:

1. Advertising is most effective when it is focused on changing behavior, not attitudes.
2. Advertising messages should be created for, and directed at, the heavy using, high-yield customers in your category.
3. We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand, we get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.

I like Bob’s approach. My favorite chapter can be found here. Check out his blog and book.

This entry was originally posted on July 6, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog.

I recently finished reading Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (I know, I’m a little late to this party). Anyone involved in telling brand stories (marketers, advertisers, customer service agents, CEOs, PR people, bloggers) should not only read, but ingest, what the Heaths have to say about communicating messages in a way that makes them “sticky”.

They retell a variety of stories to make their points: from urban legends to familiar advertising tales like Subway’s Jared and The American Legacy Foundation’s Truth campaign.

In crafting stories that stick, the authors recommend that you create messages that are Simple (not dumb, but the core of the idea), Unexpected, Concrete (using details to hook the message into memory), Credible, Emotional (the need for analysis is the enemy of stickiness), and follow a Story line. The use the acronym SUCCESS to help you remember the steps.

From the book:

“[Stories] …naturally embody most of the SUCCESSs framework. Stories are almost always Concrete. Most of them have Emotional and Unexpected elements. The hardest part of using stories effectively is making sure that they’re Simple—that they reflect your core message. It’s not enough to tell a great story; the story has to reflect your agenda… Stories have the amazing dual power to simulate and to inspire. And most of the time we don’t even have to use much creativity to harness these powers—we just need to be ready to spot the good ones that life generates every day.”

Chip and Dan note three types of story plots that resonate best. They are: 1. The Challenge Plot (underdog, rags to riches, willpower): think Southwest Airlines, Pepsi Challenge, or Richard Branson. 2. The Connection Plot: think Coke’s Mean Joe Green or Hallmark. 3. The Creativity Plot (solving problems in new ways): think ZipCar or Post-its.

Great stuff. I highly recommend this book.

From a branding standpoint, don’t miss what the Heaths have to say about the curse of knowledge and how to overcome it. Hint: well-told stories can help.

Check out these other Made to Stick links:
1. Good PDF summary of the main points of the book.
2. Chip and Dan’s Blog.
3. You can read a book excerpt here.
4. Reviews from Brand Autopsy, Time, USNews, BusinessPundit. One more here.
5. Podcasts from HBR, Ducttape Marketing.
6. An interviews from Guy Kawasaki. Another interview here.
7. The Made to Stick Change This manifesto.
8. The Made to Stick SlideShare.
9. And of course, you can buy the book here (recommended).

This entry was originally posted on June 12, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Last week I heard a few minutes of NPR’s On The Media, where Bob Garfield laid out a doomsday scenario for broadcasters (transcript here). Bob said:

“A little over a year ago, we floated a theoretical chaos scenario. It goes like this. Mainstream media, especially network TV, lose so much audience, they can no longer attract the advertising revenue they need to sustain their content, leading to still more audience defection, then more advertiser defection, and so on into the toilet, all before the on-line brave new world is ready to take over. In this past year, plenty has happened to add to the chaos. TiVo and DVR usage is rising, with Forrester Research estimating that by 2008, one in four households will be DVR’ing their favorite shows and skipping past commercials. ITunes has started selling hit TV shows for $1.99, and now all the networks are offering free streaming content on their websites. More options for us, and more jeopardy for the old model.”

Sounds like the premise for Joseph Jaffe’s recent book, Life After the 30-Second Spot, which lays out the same nightmare and about ten different alternatives to traditional, interuptive advertising.

Joe’s not the first person to argue that the 30 second spot is on life support and that consumers are about to pull the plug. Even he admits that the death of the 30 is, by now, a cliche. But it is coming. And marketers who are willing to take a few risks and try new ways to reach their audience may actually look back and agree with Joe that “there couldn’t possibly be a better time to be working in this business.”

Jaffe’s book outlines (in detail) many causes of death for the 30 second spot: fragmentation, commoditization, information overload, clutter, crappy advertising, better educated consumers, and so on. Then he lays out a few ideas for rethinking the way marketers engage consumers. My favorite quote comes from Chapter 9: Re:think Advertising: Make Advertising Relevant Again. Jaffe writes,

“There’s a rather putrid stench emanating from the world of advertising right now. And if you can’t smell it yourself, then you’re either used to it or you’ve lost your sense of smell altogether (in which case, it’s time to consider another career).”

Here, here.

Jaffe goes on to detail newish areas where marketers can get their message and brand in front of consumers: Internet, gaming, experiential marketing (emphasis on physical contact with the brand), search, consumer generated marketing, and more. But Jaffe doesn’t just provide his thinking on the matter. He also includes several short essays by other marketing experts to back up his thinking. Some of these extra essays are better than others, but all provide food for thought. It’s not that there’s a lot new here, but Jaffe wraps it all up very well in one place.

Clearly the jury is still out on the effectiveness of some of these avenues. Do gamers really respond to ads displayed on their PS2s? Do gift bags stimulate trial or simply eat up placement fees?  Did subservient chicken or BMW films really sell anything? Some of the ideas Jaffe lays out will work better than others. But the fact remains, the 30 second spot isn’t working like it used to, so why not try something different (and hopefully effective)?

Overall, this book is a good read. I get the feeling that Jaffe’s just scratched the surface and has even more to say on the subject. If you’re looking for an overview of where advertising/marketing may be headed in the future, check out Life After the 30-Second Spot.

Also of interest:
Joe Jaffe’s Blog, Jaffe Juice.
Get a free chapter from Jaffe’s book, here.
Buy the book from Amazon, here.
The first half of Jaffe’s podcast with American Copywriter.

Full disclosure: Mr. Jaffe practices what he preaches, when it comes to consumer generated marketing. I got my copy of the book on the condition I would read and review it. I agreed, noting that if I didn’t like the book, I would say so (I’ve done that before). Mr. Jaffe had no hesitation, saying, “…all I ask is an authentic review.”

This entry was originally posted on May 31, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

A few weeks ago, CEO-READ put out a call for willing book reviewers. They offered to send a book to anyone who would read and review it.

I volunteered and they sent me a copy of Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite by Paul Arden. Boy do I wish I could recommend this book. But I can’t. It’s a waste of the paper it’s printed on.

You can read my review here.

Thanks to Todd and Kate for the opportunity to contribute to CEO-READ (one of my favorite blogs).

This entry was originally posted on January 3, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

I recently finished reading Douglas Holt’s book, How Brands Become Icons. What I hoped would be a primer on creating an iconic brand was a bit of a disappointment. That’s not to say that Holt doesn’t have a few interesting things to say about creating iconic brands, but sadly, the book doesn’t deliver on its promise.

Holt is at his best writing about the three groups of consumers that create brand loyalty—Followers, Insiders, and Feeders. Followers identify strongly with a brand’s story. They are devoted to the brand because they derive a significant part of their identity from it. They are brand evangelists. Insiders are a smaller group and often value the brand less than Followers. They are critical to the brand because they wield considerable influence in the area in which the brand lives. The third group, Feeders, connect to the brand superficially, using the brand as a badge to say something about themselves. Holt compares feeders to parasites who will abandon the brand when it no longer meets their social needs. Writing of the ways a brand can lose it’s iconic status, Holt says:

“An icon[ic brand]‘s tenacious hold on its customers can be broken by two events: (1) A critical mass of followers abandons the brand because the brand’s myth is not addressing their current anxieties, or (2) a critical mass of insiders rallies against the brand because it has denigrated the populist world in which they participate.”

Unfortunately, the first several chapters of the book, where Holt lays out his theory for creating iconic brands, fall flat. He profiles several iconic brands (Snapple, Mountain Dew, Budweiser, and Volkswagon) and argues their success has come because they met a need for a brand story among white men suffering from changing roles at work.

In one chapter, he details the history of Bedweiser advertising, pointing out how the advertising supports an ongoing brand story that Bud values working men. But as work relationships changed in the 80s and 90s, Bud’s story fell flat. Then came the lizards, giving slacker men a reason to drink Bud again. The iconic Wassup ads featuring ultra-cool black slacker men followed, giving white slacker men another reason to drink Bud–because cool guys who don’t work drink it. Seriously?

Holt’s argument would be more forceful if he presented industry-wide data, showing what was going on with other brewers and their brand stories. After all, beer isn’t purchased in a competitor-less vaccum. And each of the brands he profiles grew in response to the same cultural contradictions. White men were losing their jobs so they responded by drinking Bud (and Snapple and Mountain Dew) as well as driving Volkswagons. It’s as if the theory only works for one type of brand story.

The book would be much better if Holt’s theory was predictive—if he could identify the cultural contradictions and brand stories that would resonate with consumers in the near future. He doesn’t even try.

Overall, this book reads like a theory developed by a professor who has spent precious little time actually doing the hard work of supporting a brand with effective marketing.

Rather than buy it, borrow a copy and scan the last couple of chapters for the good stuff. Chances are this book will never become an icon among the thousands of brand books competing for your attention.

This entry was first posted on December 5, 2005 at the old Brandstory Blog (link available for a limited time).

Sometime between the turkey and the five day James Bond-a-thon on Spike TV, I took some time during the Thanksgiving Holiday to read Darren Rovell’s new book, First in Thirst, about Gatorade. It’s a great business story. Gatorade dominates its category, with more than 80% of the market, and 546 million cases sold every year. So what did it take Gatorade to get there?
1. A great story. Gatorade was developed on the playing field. It was tested on athletes in real game situations. And it (probably) made a difference to the Florida Gators’ endurance. During the 1965 season, the Gators outscored their opponents by 158 points in the second half. Since then, athletes have depended on Gatorade to help them hydrate before, during, and after games. It’s a killer story. And Gatorade has stayed true to it for more than 30 years. The story is so engaging, that fans often embellish it to make it better than it really is.

Other sports drinks were invented in boardrooms to fill holes in a product line, not to meet the need of athletes. Even though some of these drinks may actually have more effective formulas, they simply don’t have the story, history, and cultural influence that Gatorade has today, and so they don’t break through.

2. Engaged Consumers. The Gatorade dunk is the single most visible use of Gatorade in sports every week. And it wasn’t invented by the company, but by a (high-profile) consumer. And rather than stepping in to encourage the dunk every week, or in new situations, Gatorade simply let this phenomena grow on its own. If it had been a “marketing event,” the dunk would have been phony and would have within a few weeks. But because it was a spontaneous activity every week, it grew until today you can see hundreds of gallons of Gatorade dumped on dozens of coaches almost every week. TV cameras still look for it twenty years after the first dunk as if it were the first time it ever happened.

3. Natural Product Placements. Before Michael Jordan, Gatorade focused on making its product available on the sidelines of major sports. It was where you would expect to see Gatorade in use. Sideline shots of athletes off the field naturally showed them drinking from their Gatorade cups and water bottles. Anyone watching the show would naturally assume that Gatorade was the athlete’s choice for an endurance drink. Note: this is very different from writing the product into the plot of a sit-com or providing a cooler of the product on a reality TV show (yes, I know Gatorade has done both appearing on The Contender and Two and a Half Men, but the important placements are on the field).

4. Serendipity. The break-through campaign featuring Michael Jordan almost never happened. A series of high-light reel spots was planned when Bernie Pitzel, the creative responsible for the first Jordan campaign, went home to watch a movie with his son. When he heard “I Wan’na Be Like You” from the animated Disney film Jungle Book, he knew he had to use it. But when Disney wanted $350,000 for a 5 week run, Pitzel penned his own version, “Be Like Mike.” Paired with kids trying to be like Mike, the ads were a hit. And they humanized Jordan in a way that made Gatorade appealing not just to athletes, but people (and kids) who wanted to do something athletic.

5. Authenticity and Relevance. Everything about Gatorade is authentic, from the product’s heritage to its placement at sporting events. You expect to see it on the sidelines of games from the NFL to little league, from college basketball to youth soccer. And Gatorade management hasn’t tried (very seriously) to take the product beyond that market, despite the huge temptation to grow into the much larger soda market. Because of this, Gatorade has stayed relevant to its core market—athletes and others who want to hydrate, whether they are playing in an important game, or just watching one of TV.

First in Thirst is a fun, well-written profile of an interesting company. There are a lot more ideas in the book. Get your copy, here.