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How did the Grateful Dead use its fanatical
following to build a $100 million brand that still thrives
today, despite the fact that the band split up in 1995?
How did upstart Boston Beer Company -- makers of Sam Adams
-- revolutionize the beer industry and prevail over lumbering
incumbent Anheuser-Busch without an advertising budget?
And how did Iams create the premium pet food market and
grow from $16 million to $600 million in sales in just fifteen
years, while charging twice the price of competitor Ralston-Purina?
Through radical marketing.
In the tradition of such bestsellers as
Thriving on Chaos and Built to Last, Radical
Marketing is a fresh, provocative approach to marketing
and strategy that has proven hugely successful for organizations
ranging from Harley-Davidson to Harvard Business School.
In this book, Sam Hill, cofounder of Helios Consulting and
an oft-quoted expert on marketing, and Glenn Rifkin, a veteran
business writer for the New York Times, identify
the unconventional strategies that have enabled ten innovative
companies to usurp valuable market share from traditional
industry leaders.
Just what do these organizations have in
common? Each is in tune emotionally with their customer
base -- allowing them to glean superior marketing insight
without spending millions of dollars on advertising or employing
huge marketing departments. Each is focused more on the
big picture -- growth and expansion -- than on short term
profits. And, despite their current success, each started
out with little more than a passion for their product, forcing
them to do things more cheaply and creatively.
How do these commonalities equal success?
In Radical Marketing, you will learn how:
- by forging long-term strategic alliances
and seeding the globe with enthusiastic missionaries,
the NBA has become the most powerful global sports brand
in the world, elevating ticket sales and TV rights to
$2 billion;
- Harley-Davidson helped spur its regeneration
by starting a club of owners -- and, in so doing, re-established
itself as an enduring brand, a darling of Wall Street,
and nothing less than an American icon of freedom and
individuality;
- little-known EMC became the dominant
player in the computer storage market, eclipsing industry
leader IBM -- by aggressively courting IBM's customer
base and creating a community of users around EMC's products;
- Snap-On Tools owns 60 percent market
share and became a nearly $2 billion company, selling
tools door-to-door to its core customer base of over one
million auto mechanics;
- Providian Financial, whose CEO lacked
any formal marketing training and expertise, cracked new
markets and won an army of new customers without using
focus groups or any traditional advertising;
- Harvard Business School created the market
for graduate business schools and established itself as
the gold standard of its industry not by resting on the
laurels of the auspicious Harvard name -- but by insisting
on consistent quality and radically changing the rules
of business education;
- and finally, how Virgin Atlantic Airways
marketed fun and superior customer service, as defined
by its iconoclastic chairman Richard Branson, into a powerful
competitive advantage and became the second largest longhaul
carrier in Britain.
Including a special chapter dedicated to
applying the radical lessons to traditional firms like Quaker
Oats and General Motors, Radical Marketing demonstrates
how any company, large or small, can achieve unprecedented
success by being radical.
Sam Hill is cofounder of the Helios Consulting
Group, which helps top management solve complex marketing
problems. With almost twenty years' experience working on
marketing issues for leading corporations around the world,
he was previously a partner with and Chief Marketing Officer
of Booz-Allen & Hamilton and Vice-Chairman of DMB&B,
a top twenty global advertising agency. His work has appeared
in the Harvard Business Review, Strategy &
Business, Fortune, and the Financial Times.
He lives with his wife and two children in Winnetka, Illinois.
Glenn Rifkin is a veteran business journalist
who has written extensively for the New York Times. He is
the coauthor of The Ultimate Entrepreneur:
The Story of Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment Corporation
and has also contributed to the
Harvard Business Review,
Fast Company,
the Boston Globe,
Forbes ASAP,
and Strategy & Business.
He is currently a senior editor with Knowledge Universe
Publishing. He lives with his son in Acton, Massachusetts.
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