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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What kind of author gives his own book just 4 stars?, April 8, 2008
This review is from: Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki (Hardcover)
As you probably noticed, I'm the author of this book - so coming here and adding a review for my own book might seem like an odd thing to do. Not giving it five stars probably seems even odder, but let me explain. This book is all about why brands need to have a personality. It is about avoiding being faceless and finding a way to add more authenticity into marketing.
Reading a book description written by a publisher is a faceless way to describe a book. I wanted to give you more than that. For a more real inside look, you can see the "making of PNI" section on the official book website - at the full name of the book (Personality Not Included), followed by dot com. There you can see photos, illustrations, original manuscript copies and lots of other material that will give you an idea of what the book took to write - as well as download the full introduction to get a sense of what the book is about.
Of course, I'd love if you buy the book here. More importantly, you'll find all my contact information on that site because I really want to hear what you thought about it. And to answer the question about why only 4 stars ... it's because I think the book is pretty good, but whether or not it deserves the top rating is really up to you.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Advice From An Insanely Great Book, April 17, 2008
This review is from: Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki (Hardcover)
Guy Kawasaki illustrates in his foreword to Rohit Bhargava's excellent new book that it's not enough anymore to produce something great, rather, an absolute necessity to create something "insanely great." Otherwise, you are simply pushing your great product out into the market flush with other great products.
So how do we ensure we create something "insanely" great? We cultivate personality.
Luckily, cultivating a personality is - when boiled down to its basic elements, one of the easiest things in the world to do. Unfortunately, the exact same can be said of golf.
The power of Bhargava's book stems from its ability to take high level marketing themes and elements and make them instantly relatable through exercises, case studies, and pop culture analogies ranging from The Simpsons to Fletch Lives - from Die Another Day to Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Of course, sharing themes is only one half of the battle - and also almost exactly one half of this book.
It's second half is stunning in that it exists as a virtual how-to guide sharing new, yet proven, marketing techniques that can turn even the stodgiest, faceless corporations into the next corporate darling - seemingly overnight.
Techniques shared include karmic marketing - or doing something good without asking for a reward, antimarketer marketing - or making fun of traditional marketing techniques in general to prove you are above it all, and fallibility marketing - or playing up your own mistakes to build a personality.
In the end, "*Personality Not Included" exists in equal measure as a text book new marketing students will find themselves hiding behind the jackets of stodgy, traditional marketing tomes; and as a vital "how-to guide" for rapid cultivation of something many corporations will be embarrassed to admit they may have never had.
Students and kings of industry alike are encouraged to hold this book close at bay.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Read with Actionable Advice, April 16, 2008
This review is from: Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki (Hardcover)
Should a business have a "face"? Should an enterprise exhibit human-like traits to set it apart from straight-laced, by the book and bureaucracy-deep "corporations"?
The answer to these two questions is unequivocally "yes", according to this excellent book.
I must confess he had me at hello on this one, because my bias was already pointed firmly in this direction, but nevertheless, Rohit did a great job of drawing me in with his no nonsense writing style, intelligent pacing and organization, and a clear passion for the subject.
Once drawn in, I was impressed by the way Rohit lead me through the process of properly "building" a company personality.
First he outlined all the key elements. I especially liked his "UAT Filter"- the three core qualities of a company personality: Unique, Authentic and Talkable
Spot on. And he presented great examples from several companies for each element.
Then Rohit did something that many book writers do not do - he wrote a "Part 2" that showed us how to actually put those elements into action, and gave us a bunch of tools to use to boot.
I'm all about the human side of a business. Actually showing that side to our customers is surely a good thing - it's the key to delighting them and making sure they stay with us for a long, long time.
Because people just aren't buying a product or service - they are buying "into" a positive experience. Rohit Bhargava, by virtue of his great experience as a marketing consultant, gets this "big time", and better still he's written a definitive book that explains it all in a practical, understandable and actionable way.
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