Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding [Hardcover]

Dan Herman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2008

How can you be immensely successful for many years, and yet not be imitated by competitors? Impossible, you say. Not so. Virgin Atlantic, the Body Shop, Apple Computers, and Birkenstock they all achieved this status, and there are ample additional examples. They cracked the secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated and are adored by customers who think that they are incomparable. Dr. Dan Herman calls it an Unfair Competitive Advantage. It's not at all unethical. Everyone has a fair chance of attaining such an advantage including, every reader of this book.

There is a secret to successful differentiation that is not imitated. It is a psychological secret that has to do with the way your competitors think. Most marketers today are MBA graduates who tend to think and operate in typical and predictable ways - you might call them MBA Clones. You can take advantage of their biases and outsmart them. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Dan Herman not only reveals the secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated but also supplies you with a comprehensive set of practical rules and tools that will enable you to make an unfair advantage your reality.

Dr. Herman, a competitive strategy consultant with vast global experience, a seasoned CMO in a large corporation, a branding professional and a businessman, does not tell you to 'think out of the box' as so many do he provides you with a new and comprehensive toolbox for success.

You'll learn:

-- The secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated
-- How to scan methodically for both strategic and tactical opportunities for success
-- How to integrate a business model, a competitive strategy and a brand concept to create a unitary 'unique success formula' for your company
-- How to create marketing hits short meteoric successes
-- How to use electrifying marketing, just-on-desire branding and the brand drama approach to build emotionally powerful brands, and many other useful additions to your profit-generating arsenal of concepts and methods.

Using a plethora of examples from top businesses around the world, Dr. Herman offers a business oriented-point of view that is fresh and different, and even humorous at times. Even though this book will turn your thinking inside out, everything in it is practical and easily applicable in any kind of business.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Dan Herman is an expert in identifying growth opportunities and creating competitive advantages for companies and for brands. He is a co-owner and the CEO of "Competitive Advantages," a global strategy consulting firm. Dr. Herman is also a keynote speaker, professional lecturer, seminar leader and training workshop moderator.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Paramount Market Publishing, Inc. (January 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978660285
• ISBN-13: 978-0978660284
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dan Herman, PhD, is an inventor of new ways for companies and individual businesspersons to succeed thrive and profit. He is a businessman, an entrepreneur and a globally renowned expert in competitive strategy, marketing innovation and branding. He has extensive business and managerial experience.


Current activities
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Dr. Dan Herman (http://www.danherman.com) is the owner and CEO of Competitive Advantages a highly trained and specialized task force operating globally to help companies develop a unique attractiveness to their markets and the leader of the THINK SHORT consulting network specializing in developing branding and marketing new products designated to arouse rapid buyer enthusiasm.

Dr. Herman is also a shareholder and active member of the board of the Elyakim, Herman & Nahardea Advertising (http://www.elyakim.co.il), in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Dr. Herman is a keynote speaker and a trainer of his original methods. He is frequently interviewed in the media worldwide, wherever he is active.


Career background
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Dr. Dan Herman's managerial and business experience includes senior executive positions such as:
- VP Marketing of Migdal Group (Israel's largest group of insurance and financial services and subsidiary of the multinational Generali Group),
- Senior VP of Dahaf Group - a part of True North Communications, now acquired by Interpublic (advertising, home shopping TV channel, marketing services and consumer research)
- Deputy Director General for Strategy and Research at Bauman-Ber Advertising - Saatchi & Saatchi.

Dr. Herman lectured at several leading universities and colleges in Israel (Bar Ilan University, The College of Management Academic Studies, and others) for more than a decade, until his international consulting activities took priority and his frequent travels prevented him from keeping an orderly teaching schedule.


Bibliography
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Dr. Dan Herman has published three books to date, that have been translated into a number of languages. He has also written numerous articles and academic textbook chapters.

Dr. Herman authored two strategy, marketing and branding books in the Hebrew language: Achieving an Unfair Advantage: Winning Strategic Management in a World of MBA Clones and The Brand Builder's Guide. The latter was translate into Russian and published in Moscow by Geleos under the title Birth of a Brand. A collection of his articles, I want to be a brand, was published in Turkey by Alteo.

His recent book Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding was published in the USA by Paramount Books (www.outsmart-mba-clones.com). The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com. His next book, THINK SHORT: Developing, Branding and Marketing Innovations That Fly is expected in the near future.

Dr. Herman also published two e-books: Short-Term Brands Revolutionize Branding (November 2002) and The Making or Faking of Emotionally Significant Brands (June 2003).

Dr. Herman has made several contributions of chapters and articles to academic handbooks including: Consumer Behavior: Implications for Marketing Strategies Edited by G. Radha Krishna, Icfai University Press 2005, Emotional Branding, edited by Nasreen Taher, Icfai University Press 2006, Lifestyle Marketing - Concepts And Cases edited by K. Sangeetha, Icfai University Press 2007.

Dr. Herman's articles were published in such reputable magazines and professional edited websites as (a very partial list):

The Journal of Brand Management - www.palgrave-journals.com/bm
The Icfai University Journal of Brand Management (India)
The CEO Refresher - www.refresher.com/ceo.html
Marketing Profs - www.marketingprofs.com
Brand Channel - www.brandchannel.com
All About Branding - www.allaboutbranding.com
Top Manager (Russia) - www.top-manager.ru
Social Science Research Network - www.ssrn.com
Management Craft - managementcraft.typepad.com
The Pool - www.poolonline.com
The Manager (Germany) - www.themanager.org
The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand - www.marketing.com.au
BrandScape Africa - www.brandscapeafrica.org

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turn your MBA toolkit into a weapons system, February 7, 2008

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding (Hardcover)

Masters degrees in Business Administration (MBA) are not only being taught in elite schools, but in nearly every university, college, and diploma mill that can find some way to get accreditation. Most of the programs teach their students similar concepts in the core subjects of Financial and Management Accounting, Finance, Economics, Statistics, Operations, Organizational Behavior, Information Systems, Marketing and Corporate Strategy. If everyone has the same tools and book of tactics, including how to differentiate your company and create a competitive advantage, how can you actually compete and win in the real world? Worse, these kinds of programs train these managers to work, think, and fit in to the large companies that hire MBAs by the campusfull. That is why this book refers to MBA Clones and provides an approach that takes a different tack than standard MBA thinking would see.

It isn't that what you learn as an MBA isn't valuable, it's that learning the core of a business program provides you with only a basic toolset. You still need to learn to apply them. However, if you apply them like everyone else (the problem with `best practices') you aren't creating a compelling advantage. The best business folks are artists and use their toolsets in powerfully creative ways to win in the marketplace.

Dan Herman is a Ph.D. and CEO (and co-owner) of Competitive Advantages Ltd. Through which he and his team serve companies all around the world. Their goal is to help their clients identify growth opportunities and creating `unfair' competitive advantages. Along with this Advantagizing they help create powerful and compelling brands and profitable business models.

In part 1 of this book provides a look at what Herman's views on some common myths of Competitive Advantage (that you have to be better than your competitors, that you have to endear yourself to as many customers as possible, and that your competitive edge is to be found on a parameter that is important in your business category. He then provides a secret to Differentiation and uses examples from Virgin, Google, Starbucks and others to show you what he is after.

Part 2 explains their O-Scan (opportunity scan) method. It is about identifying insights about customers and what they are GOING to want (rather than what they are demanding today). You also learn to use a customers 15 stage consumption process to find points of pain and opportunity, to provide more consumer benefits, and seeing the hidden rules your competitors are using to win.

Part 3 is provides Herman's views of Branding. First you have to understand the consumer's mind. I found this discussion of how the consumer experiences things, what they are trying to do, and how they for their beliefs to be quite interesting. Herman also rejects the idea that Branding creates brands. He says that it is the real success factors that you have identified previously that will provide substance and power to your brand. He provides the ABCDE of Brand Success: Attribution of benefit, Believability, Craving, Differentiation, and Ease of acting upon their desire.

For Herman, brands are more about expectations, anticipations, and dreams that take them out of their hum-drum reality. It is about adventure, temptations, testing limits, nostalgia, and much more. The goal is to make your marketing electrifying to your customers. He also provides interesting chapters on developing marketing hits and how you can drive your consumers crazy about your brand.

Is all this absolutely original and unique? Look, I have an MBA from the University of Michigan Business School and what he says here is consistent with what I learned there. The expectation I had upon graduation was to use what I learned creatively. What Herman does is help those interested in turning the toolkit you were given into a weapons system. And I think that is very worthwhile.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real deal, January 22, 2008

By 

Byron D. Metrikin Gold "Byron" (Bala Cynwyd PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding (Hardcover)

This book, which I was privileged to read as a review copy of the publisher, contains a totally new approach to marketing, one that is not taught in business schools, one that is geared to today's changed consumer environment. For example, to read the author's description of the Joe Boxer phenomenon is for old fogies like me to have a lightbulb on the culture suddenly turn on.

The book is full of extraordinary insights. A true page-turner, I highly recommend it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fresh Look at Short-Term Thinking, February 10, 2008

By 

Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding (Hardcover)

Long-term strategies have been replaced by ones that adapt and change as opportunities are identified.

"Launch and forget" brands today, such as Marboro, are rare. They have been replaced by visual identities and advertising styles that change rapidly. To succeed over the long-term managements must succeed in the short-term time after time.

Dan Herman, citing observations from Copernicus Marketing Consulting, argues brands are becoming like commodities. Consumers can no longer differentiate them from sugar, corn or cement. They are created by marketers who employ the same data, the same focus groups and data analysis. The marketers have become indistinguishable.

In this new environment, Herman observes:

1. Porter, Kotler, Aaker and Ries and their rules are obsolete.
2. Marketers need to understand nature's rules. They need to be able to devise alternatives paths to the same goals.
3. Theoretical concepts are tools for thinking about reality. They are not reality itself.

If you are a seasoned marketer, this book is different from another you have read. Herman's fresh thinking about competitive advantage, marketing, customer segmentation, differentiation and branding will challenge your thinking. It is worth every penny of its cover price.