Customer Reviews

Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer's Guide to a Kid's Heart

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Are you looking for a secret formula to guide your kid focused marketing decisions? Gene Del Vecchio's book - "Creating Ever-Cool A Marketer's Guide to a Kid's Heart" is truly insightful. It is the closest thing to a secret formula that I've come across.

'Ever-Cool' is a book that answers a seemingly simple but actually quite complex question... Why do some brands in the kids marketplace remain the favorites of children year after year - generation after generation. Exactly what gives these brands their staying power? 'Ever-Cool' answers this question in a well written and entertaining style.

The book has 4 sections: 'The Introduction' , 'The Child's Psyche' , 'A Kid's World and Culture' and 'Marketing to a Child's heart'.

In 'The Child's Psyche' section Del Vecchio examines the timeless and underlying needs of childhood. From the differences between girls and boys, to their fears and fantasies.

'A Kid's World and Culture' investigates children in the world today. Their self awareness, shifting family structures, and universal (hopefully) experiences of childhood such as going to school, and living in the neighborhood. The 'Marketing to a Child's heart' section contains lots of advice and suggestions on how to utilize these insights.

I found the concept that there could be 'Kid Psyche Gaps' in the market place to be particularly intriguing. Del Vecchio explains it in the following way: Psyche Gaps are "that part of the child's psyche that is not currently being satisfied by a competitor" (pg. 221.) Clearly identifying what these gaps are and strategically developing a product to fill the gap is very sound marketing.

Another really cool part of this section is the 'Kids' Idea Matrix'. Del Vecchio provides a creative idea development aid that works in the following way: "By forcing our eyes to see relationships, we help our brains consider the ideas that are born from them. This can be accomplished with a system I call Matrixing a simple process of putting various categories of items in front of our eyes, side by side, in a fashion that will help us to easily mix and match them. The items we will force together are those that we have discussed throughout this book." (pg. 185) Del Vecchio essentially is showing us how to use his ideas.

Del Vecchio also briefly covers advertising, setting up a research program, and ethics. All in all I personally have no hesitation in recommending this book. I found it to be highly insightful and an enjoyable read.

People who want their products to excel in a child's world get a unique insight as to what triggers children. Del Vecchio shares his extensive experience with the reader in a language which is down-to-earth. Add to this an extensive use of case materials which sets it all into perspective, and you have a book which is of interest to any marketer.

The reader is left with an enthusiatic feeling of "this can be done with my product".

Short version: Buy this book now, and get it shipped to you overnight!

This book is the secret weapon for anyone who markets to kids or wants to. Gene Del Vecchio manages to make the subject entertaining and engaging while teaching you a pile of indispensible techniques to capture a kid's heart.

Not only does the book teach you how to market products better, it gets you thinking different. Suddenly, you're developing products and strategies with kids in mind, and you understand why certain products are big hits with kids.

Another funny thing about this book...it helps you to understand kids better. For readers with their own kids, this could be the greates value of all.

The author not only reveals important and interesting aspects of a child's psyche, but also gives you insights on how to use those aspects to make your products and brands "ever cool".

Buy it for the 25 pages on kid psyche. The rest is bonus (special bonus offer: 90% more free!). Damn insightful bonus. I constantly refer back to the kid psyche section. Every time I work on a creative strategy. Every time I look at a new toy. I can't tell you how valuable this book as been for me and my group. Five stars+++

This is required reading for anyone who hopes to effectively market to children. Unlike professorial/scholarly treatises, this author has actually been in the trenches, and it shows. The real world applications is what puts this book above all others dealing with this topic.

This is pretty simple and easy to read. There are many examples of successful and unsuccessful products. The book uses these as supporting arguments and the occasional quote from an industry person. But there is no other relevant research on the minds of children that makes them gravitate towards the things things they do. That is if there was, it was not cited. In addition, the research is outright sexist. It encourages readers to market to boys and girls separately, and in the most stereotypical ways possible.

Instead, I recommend "Brandchild" by Lindstrom and Seybold is a much better and more in-depth look at the same topic. It says some of the same things as "Ever-Cool" but it is more up-to-date, more in-depth, less overtly sexist, and uses more numbers and statistics from their worldwide research to back up their claims. They also give more insight into how to target a group.

Creating Ever-Cool is must-read for marketers - especially for anyone marketing to kids.

Entertainment brands are often short-lived. As the title of the book suggests, there are ways to revitalize and sustain the life of a product or brand. Gene Del Vecchio's book gives you practical suggestions on how to do it.

Today's brand stewardship involves not only corporate ID, mission and vision statements, but also creating back stories that help consumers understand the brand in context. Nowhere is this more important than in marketing to children. In his chapter, "Develop Kid-Appealing Products" Gene provides matrices that help marketers create a story line for their products and brands. In cases where a story actually is the product or brand, as with film, video games, books, and many toys, his insights are invaluable.

As a marketing professional and former Ogilvy & Mather Creative Director, I've known Gene Del Vecchio for 20 years. He was the head of planning and research at the Ogilvy & Mather/LA office, and his expertise was often tapped by other Ogilvy offices - especially when a project involved kid marketing. I worked with him on major brands including Microsoft, Mattel, Pacific Bell, and Shell. His thinking played a major role in the development of advertising for the brands we worked on together. Creating Ever-Cool is a rare insight into the thinking of a brilliant marketer.

Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer's Guide to a Kid's Heart

This might be the most useful business book and the best book on kids that I've ever read.

Most business books have just a couple of points, mostly covered in the first chapter, and then drone on to fill the pages with expansions, slight additions, and examples. They should have been articles instead of books.

This book, however, is absolutely brimming with valuable information about the psyche of kids, chapter after chapter. It starts with ever-present needs; moves into fads; gender specific issues; age based issues; etc etc.

It draws on the authors extensive hands on experience at Ogilvy working with kids marketing. And his apparent research on child development and psychology.

This is an excellent, concise but information-packed book on reaching kids for marketers, product developers and even parents!