Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? (Hardcover)

by Seth Godin (Author) "Before Advertising, there were hundreds of thousands of companies..." (more)
Key Phrases: meatball sundae, new gatekeepers, New Marketing, Old Marketing, Josiah Wedgwood (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Godin's latest business handbook (after Small Is the New Big and The Dip) revisits some of his most popular marketing advice, while emphasizing that it can't just be applied willy-nilly. In past decades, he says, companies were able to get rich by making average products for average people, but those markets have long since been sewn up; mass is no longer achievable [or] desirable. Rather than simply rely on mass media to raise product visibility, New Marketing treats every aspect of interacting with customers—including customer service and the product itself—as an opportunity to grow the organization. In order to be successful with such marketing techniques, a company must change its practices across the board. Otherwise, you're just putting whipped cream on a meatball. Godin has a perspective on everything from blogs (don't bother unless you really have something to say) to the long tail (if it's as valuable to your company as the top sellers are, why aren't you paying more attention?). His arresting conversational style is sure to once again set the business world talking. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Godin…is a clear-eyed visionary with strong and sensible ideas on how the new economy can, should and will function."—Miami Herald (Miami Herald )

Godinis a clear-eyed visionary with strong and sensible ideas on how the new economy can, should and will function.Miami Herald (Miami Herald )

[Godin's] arresting conversational style is sure to once again set the business world talking. - Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly ) --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (December 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841747
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841746
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,282 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy a copy of Meatball Sundae for your boss*, December 26, 2007

By	David M. Scott "David Meerman Scott" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I deliver keynote speeches and run seminars at companies, I am often asked for advice on how to convince the bosses that the new rules of marketing really work. Frequently people say something like: "My bosses make me prove ROI before I can do this online thought leadership and viral marketing stuff."

My cynical answer is: "What's the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?"

But then I suggest that people to ask their boss if in the past few months, they've made a product or service decision based on a direct mail piece they received or based on a TV advertisement. (Almost no bosses have). Then I say they should ask their boss if in the past few months they've used Google or another search engine to make a product or service decision. (Virtually all bosses have).

Well now I have something else to suggest. Buy a copy of Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? for your bosses.* Tell them it is an important book. Meatball Sundae will be your tool to help others in your organization to understand what you already get and what you are eager to implement. It will help you to get the buy-in to do the new rules of marketing that you know makes sense.

But first your bosses may need to transform your company.

Meatball Sundae lays out in a convincing manner the transformations that are taking place in business today. These transformations mean that everything needs to be looked at carefully, including marketing. But to just toss new marketing onto the top of obsolete business models is like putting whipped cream and a cherry onto meatballs to make a sundae. (Yuk).

Godin tells a story I really like. Josiah Wedgewood, a potter in England in the 1800's at the start of the Industrial Revolution, was the first to create a factory with a production line and job specialization. He built a showroom and shipped product around the world. And he sold bespoke pieces to royalty but first displayed those fantastic and expensive creations for several months so all could see. (Wedgewood was a marketing genius AND a business pioneer.)

Josiah Wedgewood took advantage of changes in society and technology and changed the way business is done, made millions, and founded a company still famous today. But his brother Thomas Wedgewood stuck to the ways that all potters have worked in the past, barely made a living, and is forgotten today.

Godin says fourteen trends are completely remaking what it means to be a marketer. And while these trends are transforming organizations that have the right approaches, they are crippling the organizations that are stuck with nothing but meatballs. Once again, marketing is transforming what we make and how we make it.

* > If you ARE the boss, you should buy copies for your board members and investors...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chasing marketing fads without changing your company can results in wasteful mistmatches, January 25, 2008

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

If you had a bowl of meatballs and wanted to dress them up a bit before you served them, would you add whipped cream, a sprinkle of nuts, and a cherry on top? A meatball sundae doesn't sound attractive? Seth Godin knows how to write with snappy images to get his ideas across in crisp, concise, and memorable images. The idea of the meatball sundae is used to illustrate old style companies trying to "get with it" by using the New Marketing paradigm without updating anything else. One of the examples he cites is the $40 million Anheuser-Busch spent on Bud-TV to add zero new customers. I am not qualified to judge the appropriateness of the effort or what Bud was after, but I do agree with the author that the goal of all marketing, in the end, has to be to create more customers.

The book has three parts that each consists of multiple short sections that focus on aspects of the topic under discussion. Part 1 is "Thinking About the Meatball Sundae" and takes us through the history of marketing in the US and how it has gone through several upheavals and how those who got their marketing in synch with the new realities won.

Part 2 is "The Fourteen Trends", which discusses the realities of the New Marketing.
They fourteen trends are:

1) Direct Communication and Commerce Between Producers and Consumers
2) Amplification of the Voice of the Consumer and Independent Authorities
3) Need for an Authentic Story as the Number of sources Increases
4) Extremely Short Attention Spans Due to Clutter
5) The Long Tail
6) Outsourcing
7) Google and the Dicing of Everything
8) Infinite Channels of Communication
9) Direct Communication and Commerce Between Consumers and Consumers
10) The Shifts in Scarcity and Abundance
11) The Triumph of Big Ideas
12) The Shift From How Many to Who
13) The Wealthy Are Like Us
14) New Gatekeepers, No Gatekeepers

Part 3 is "Putting It Together" and Case Studies. The Case Studies are short illustrations of how these principles and trends support success or how failure results from ignoring them.

The book is a pleasant read and geared towards those trying to get a handle on what is happening now in the marketplace, especially to entrepreneurs thinking about their marketing efforts. It is written with energy and without academic jargon.

You will know if this book is for you. That is, if you are writing checks for marketing programs for your company, this book is for you.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meatballs Belong on a Plate of Spaghetti, January 2, 2008

By	Jeffrey Bean "Jeff Bean" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Seth Godin has the uncanny presence to write what most marketers won't. Seth gives us examples where "New Marketing" works. He shows us why "Old Marketing" is fading because consumers are so good at ignoring ads and blocking out other unwanted marketing interruptions (see his ROI on direct mail v. real opt-in email). Seth also makes predictions (a marketplace with more personally tailored choices, better service, happier customers). So what's a meatball sundae? It's topping a bowl of meatballs (Old Marketing and mass-consumed products) with whipped cream and a cherry (New Marketing such as blogs and podcasts). What do you get? Heartburn, and not much else. After reading this book, you'll be challenged to think about your marketing and how to create true sundaes that are in sync with your products and customers. They'll tell you what they want if you let them. They already are through Internet searches and near-instaneous sharing of information. New Marketing is not going away. Continue to spam and yell at consumers through Old Marketing tactics at your own risk. Consumers have already been liberated.