Review
It's not easy to find a marketing book where all the hype is in other authors' endorsements. The refreshingly no-nonsense volume you hold in your hands is one. Brand Zeitgeist answers the critical question you should be asking to grow your business: What does it take to get under your customer's skin?
Chris Houchens delivers with this thoughtful work, in the same easygoing style that's made his Shotgun Marketing Blog a must-read for me.
If you're trying to figure out how to connect with customers when traditional marketing has lost much of its value, and why "connecting" is a whole lot more than today's buzz word, this is the book for you.
Zeitgeist is a real zinger! --Kelly Erickson, Author of Maximum Customer Experience and owner of VisionPoints, The Experience Designers. (added by author)
From the Author
--From the preface of Brand Zeitgeist...This book will not solve your current marketing problem. However, it might help to stem marketing problems that could present themselves a few years down the road.
The truth is there are many companies who are utilizing shortsighted marketing schemes that will just get customers in the door to meet this week's sales quota. They are neglecting the customer relationships they could be building for success next week, next quarter, or next year. They're focusing on the short-term with their marketing and killing their long-term success.
Smart companies know the most effective marketing strategy is to build a long-term relationship with a dedicated group of customers. This is better known as branding.
What this book attempts to do is clarify how a healthy brand image is the most important marketing tool an organization can have. It explains how a long-term systemic branding philosophy can help make the other aspects of marketing easier and cheaper. It shows how a strong brand nourishes a current customer base and helps develop new customers.
The book uses the concept of the zeitgeist, the public's collective consciousness, as the framework to use to integrate a brand into a specific market.
This book is offered as a guide for developing an overall brand strategy and brand philosophy, not to offer a playbook of specific marketing tactics. Think of this book as a basic guide for your overall nutritional plan rather than what you should have for lunch.
Branding is a big-picture view of business. The zeitgeist is a big picture view of what the public is thinking about. When you combine these two large-scale visions and make connections between them, you can develop penetrating marketing tactics that will be successful with any target market. (added by author)
