The End of Marketing as We Know It [Hardcover]

Sergio Zyman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1999

Marketing as we know it today is about image. It's about getting consumers to love your products. It's about producing award-winning commercials and promotions, and creating ads people like. It's about buzzwords like "events," "relationships," and "intimacy."

Problem is, it's not working.

So says the "Aya-Cola," Sergio Zyman, two-time marketing czar of Coca-Cola and today quite possibly the most famous marketer--and marketing gadfly--in the world. Brilliant and irascible, Zyman is best known for reinventing The Coca-Cola Company's marketing approach by spearheading the launches of such world-class global brands as Diet Coke, New Coke, Classic Coke, Fruitopia, and Sprite. Over a combined thirteen-year period, Zyman directed a zestful multibillion-dollar marketing effort, masterminding such timeless campaigns as "Coke Is It!" and "Always Coca-Cola," that resulted in sales of more than 15 billion cases of Coke products per year to over 5 billion consumers in 190 countries.

In "The End of Marketing As We Know It," Zyman reveals, with characteristic flair, the counterintuitive and often provocative marketing strategies and tactics that earned him the nickname "Aya-Cola" on Madison Avenue and helped to increase the market value of The Coca-Cola Company from a mere $56 billion to an astounding $193 billion in just five years. Shattering the mystique surrounding the discipline of marketing and upending the tradition of creating popular, crowd-pleasing ads and promotions, Zyman recounts such illuminating anecdotes as why he decided not to rerun the much-loved "I'd like to teach the world to sing" Coke commercial and why "feel-good" marketing is pointless unless it results in sales.He also explores:

• Why marketing isn't an art but a science

• How a well-honed strategy is more important to your success than what your ads say

• How everything communicates--and what that means to consumers

• The rise of consumer democracy--and the threat of consumer communism

• How marketing locally is necessary to build global equity

• Why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department

• How ad agencies are fixated on the wrong things

  And why:

• It's crucial to increase your marketing budget--not to cut it--when sales are down

• Megabrands are a terrible idea, but huge brands are a great idea

• It's suicide to base your sales projections on previous performance

• You must be focused on profit, not volume for volume's sake

• It's sometimes necessary to enter a category just to kill it

• All marketers must be accountable to shareholders

Visionary and rogue, "The End of Marketing As We Know It" captures a seismic shift in marketing, from the master of the trade.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Remember the New Coke? A disaster, right? Or how about the commercial where "Mean" Joe Greene meets a little kid holding a bottle of Coke? A masterpiece, right? Wrong, on both counts. Sergio Zyman, who was the chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola, will tell you that while the New Coke nose-dived, it--and the subsequent reintroduction of Coke Classic--helped to reconnect people to the soft drink and revitalize a brand that was losing market share to Pepsi. And as for "Mean" Joe Greene, while people loved the ad, it wasn't doing what good marketing should do: sell product, which is what Zyman's book, The End of Marketing As We Know It, is all about.

For Zyman, marketing is not an art, it's a business. "Marketing is a strategic activity and discipline focused on the endgame of getting more consumers to buy your product more often so that your company makes more money." He sees too many marketers who don't understand this point, who are too concerned about projecting image when they should really be focused on producing sales. Zyman peppers the book with stories about various campaigns at Coke as well as assessments of companies that get it, such as Starbucks and Southwest Airlines, to companies that don't, for example, Nissan and Levi's. He believes that the old-style marketing of Madison Avenue is dead, that it no longer has the "ability to move the masses," that in today's "consumer democracy" there are simply too many choices. Instead, marketers will have to focus on sales, conversion rates, targeting customers, and creating value for shareholders. The End of Marketing As We Know It is not a primer on how to do better marketing; rather, it's a reordering of priorities so that good marketing will be done in the first place. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

From Booklist

Zyman has twice served as head of marketing for Coca-Cola. His message here is as deceptively simple as a Coke jingle. Marketing, Zyman argues, is not about making commercials or creating an image; it is about selling "stuff." Zyman is credited with creating memorable marketing campaigns that helped Coca-Cola double its sales and stock price. He also played a primary role in the "New Coke" debacle, which he can now claim was actually a success because it "revitalized the brand and reattached the public to Coke." At the time, though, he left the company in--in the eyes of many--disgrace. Nonetheless, the company asked him back in 1993. He left again last year because, industry observers suggested, he coveted the position of company president and did not get it. He says he wanted to write a textbook on marketing. This is it, but this is not a textbook in any traditional sense. Neither, though, is it a showcase for Coca-Cola nor a reputation-saving attempt to get his version of events aired. David Rouse --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness; 1 edition (May 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887309860
• ISBN-13: 978-0887309861
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,452,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great info for all business people, October 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of Marketing as We Know It (Hardcover)

When a colleague handed me a copy of The End of Marketing As We Know It by Sergio Zyman, former chief marketing officer of The Coca-Cola Company, I had two reactions.

One was enthusiasm. I'd learn some things from a real pro and become better at what I do. The second was a wary feeling. Because Zyman is a pro, I was afraid the book would be full of "expert jargon" - over my head, dry, and reading like a textbook.

After reading the book, I'm wholly enthusiastic about it. The End of Marketing As We Know It is a good read - Zyman teaches with plenty of good examples, encourages one to think about one's own experiences and methods, and has an entertaining, conversational tone that keeps the book from becoming dry or "heavy." It's the first book in a very long time that I've wanted to re-read right after finishing it. As someone who writes features for a business magazine and also does PR and advertising, I found Zyman's words relevant and invaluable.

Everyone in business should read this book - and not just the folks in the marketing/advertising department, and not just the big companies. Its content is pertinent to overall business strategy, because it focuses on marketing as a business, or a science - producing measurable results in the form of increased sales rather than merely running some ads that may be appealing and even award-winning but aren't doing anything for the company's bottom line.

Readers will learn why it's important to form a marketing strategy and make regular measurements to test its success. They'll learn ways to position a product - their own and their competitor's - in the minds of consumers. And that continually presenting a brand in fresh and different ways - and in different markets - is essential to keeping sales up. And much more. Whether or not you agree with all of Zyman's methods, this book will definitely make you think and may even rescue you from stale, dead-in-the-water viewpoints about marketing.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly devoid of new insights, November 5, 2000

By 

"pierce_inverarity" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of Marketing as We Know It (Hardcover)

I have great respect for the Coca-Cola marketing machine, but this book does not demonstrate that organization's genius. The book's title is a dishonest overstatement. The main thesis, "marketing is about selling things, not about being cool," is hardly "the end of marketing as we know it" -- it's basic stuff any kid with a lemonade stand could tell you. Zyman tells some amusing war stories, but ultimately, he is not bringing anything new to the table. (Perhaps he's guarding the Coca Cola "state secrets"?)

If you need to be convinced that marketing is about selling things, or if you'd like to read Sergio Zyman's marketing memoirs, then buy this book. Otherwise, it's of little value.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No epiphany here, May 30, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The End of Marketing as We Know It (Hardcover)

Zyman's premise -- that marketing is about selling rather than fluff -- comes as no revelation to any marketer. We are subjected to 247 pages that, in the end, do little more than meander around this notion, which most of us internalized in Marketing 101. At least it's a fast (and light) read. The "end of this book, as he wrote it," comes blessedly fast.