Customer Reviews

Radical Marketing : From Harvard to Harley, Lessons From Ten That Broke the Rules and Made It Big

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ten companies that symbolize radical marketing - it's a great concept...

However, after reading the first three, you pretty much have a grasp of what the lessons are. Continuing on is only an exercise in reading the same story over and over, with different CEO names inserted and different products peddled.

You know how it goes... Company at the brink of bankruptcy, young leader-type without a business degree, creative solutions born out of financial constraints... Ta da! A great company emerges from the ashes.

It's just that this book doesn't make you think enough. It's a great story, but it's just too easy - not enough struggle, not enough of reality. I just can't believe that everything is so peachy at all these organizations. I want the truth - I can believe that radical marketing techniques work, but I can't believe they work absolutely. I mean, IAMS just sold out to P&G, but the book makes it sound like Clay Mathile (the former CEO) would never leave IAMS because he's so married to the brand.

It's a good airplane book, but it's a bit of a fairy tale.

I bought Radical Marketing because I needed some radical ideas to jump-start my company's marketing.

On the up-side the authors did package up some useful information for me and I got insights into how companies in widely varying markets can put the same radical ideas to use with the possibility of good success.

The book's wisdom though, is many times at odds with the situation of readers like me. For instance, the book admonishes readers not to fall into the traditional marketing trap which says just throw enough money at it and people will buy it. Of course, I'm not P&G or Quaker Oats (see the Snapple debacle recounted in the "Applying the Lessons" chapter) so I can't fall into that trap since I don't have that kind of money. And neither do, I suspect, most readers.

The 10 case studies could have easily been pared down since many of the companies profiled use the same tactics. After about the fourth case study I was really struggling to continue on, thinking it would just be more of the same with a different name. Basically, it was.

My advice to the authors for their sequel is to apply some of the radical advice they give and keep it to 100 pages. Less, many times, is more. And when you're forced to work with less your focus gets lots sharper.

The message is a positive one. Leaders without formal marketing training or piles of money can build successful businesses, given a strong connection with customers and a personal commitment to delivering a quality product.

Like many popular business books, Radical Marketing has a strong core concept that could have been expressed fully in 30 pages or so, but was extended to book length by endless examples and anecdotes.

I find that most business books these days have little to say and take a long time saying it. As a founder of three successful businesses, I have always wondered who buys them. This book is exactly the opposite. Hill and Rifkin write the old fashioned way. They start with solid research and interviews at a dozen companies which have built legendary customer loyalty. From this research, they distill each company's secrets of success. Ultimately, this allows them to generalize a set of practical, low-cost marketing approaches anyone can follow in their business. Most importantly, they write in direct, hard-hitting language that makes it difficult to put the book down. Its like Grisham writing about successful marketers like Harley Davidson, The Grateful Dead, and Sam Adams beer. If you want a book with solid content, home-run ideas, and engaging writing, this one's for you.

Divided into two parts - the first defining "radical" as an approach to marketing, and the second a series of ten case studies analyzing companies that 'got radical' - this book os an interesting analysis of traditional vs. new marketing. Defining traditional marketing as big, complex, aimed at the center of a mass market, separated from the consumer, and formulaic, the authors assert that newer more radical marketing methods are paying bigger dividends than old traditional advertising.

Citing organizations such as Snap-on Tools, Harvard Biz School, Boston Beer Company, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and the NBA, the authors build a solid case for anew breed of marketers with more intuition and vision than marketing education. The case studies are insightful and always entertaining. In fact, the chapter on Harley Davison's recovery from near bankruptcy in 1985 to $1.8 billion revenue and record profits in 1997 might just be worth the price of the book. Similarly, Jerry Garcia fans will love the well argued discussion of the Grateful Dead as radical marketers.

The books main weakness is its lack of concrete `next steps' for the aspiring radical marketer. It also has little to offer (outside of the case studies) for the already radical. If you read just one marketing book a year - skip this one. But, if you enjoy well-researched and entertaining case studies, `Radical Marketing' is definitely worth a look.

I've just finished this book and as I read the other reviews, I'm not surprised that the reviews most people found helpful were the negative ones. This isn't a bad book if you are solely looking for an interesting read as most of the ten companies the author profiles are widely known and it is fun to learn about them. But each company's story gets more and more predictable and the 'radical' marketing schemes don't seem so radical anymore. If you've read any of the books by Ries and Trout on Marketing, you really appreciate how succinct they are in delivering their many lessons. I can't imagine this book as serving any real practical use to Marketing professionals, but if some of the companies featured in this book interest you, it makes for some interesting, albeit light, reading.

This book really helped us to position our agency (The Ad Store Amsterdam) against other agencies. Since we not only read this book but also used it (we even positioned ourselves as being a Radical Marketing Agency), our work improved and our client list grew beyond expectations. In short: this is a great book!

It is always said that Marketing always consumes huge amount of money. It is because most of the marketer used the traditional marketing strategies, such as advertising, which need large amount of money.

However, after you read this book, you will disagree with the above statement. It is because you will find that there are lots of other marketing strategies which are also very useful but do not cost so much money. This book gave you lots of ideas and examples about ¡§radical marketing¡¨ which would help you to build relationship with customers through different kind of strategies.

And I particularly agree with one of the rules mentioned by the author. That is the marketer should go out the office and interactive with the customers. Since customer is one of the most important ¡§assets¡¨ for the company. And the customers nowadays change rapidly. So it is very important for the marketer to interactive with the customers so as to understand the customer need or any changes of the customer needs. And actually, I think that this concept should not be only applied to ¡§radical marketing¡¨. Instead, all marketers should pay attention to this point and consider taking action.

For a book that is supposed to be about radical marketing, I am not sure why this one had such a conservative world view -- or why the "experts" quoted were from the traditionally strong marketing establishment like P&G. What do I really care what a P&G brand manager/VP has to say about how Harley markets?

Much too tame, staid, and academic to be of much interest. I won't finish it.

I purchased the book without expecting much, and was extremely impressed. The authors have developed key indicators or successful Radical Marketing implementation and then present 10 companies who have made it work.