Think Two Products Ahead: Secrets the Big Advertising Agencies Don't Want You to Know and How to Use Them for Bigger Profits (Hardcover)

by Ben Mack (Author), Dave Lakhani (Afterword), Mark Joyner (Foreword)
Key Phrases: sea rats, framing tools, five basic positions, Think Two Products Ahead, Wells Fargo, Clif Bar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This commonsense guide lets you develop your brand with the same techniques and technologies as the big players—but without all the cost. You’ll learn to master the same three-step plan the big advertisers use and discover the secret to brand continuity from product to product. This valuable resource will help you connect your products with your customers, no matter how small your brand.

From the Inside Flap
Branding is something you probably only think of in terms of household names and huge conglomerates. But branding isn't just for the big boys; smart branding is smart business for almost any company, no matter its size. In Think Two Products Ahead, ad agency insider Ben Mack reveals all the branding secrets the pros keep to themselves so you can put branding to work in your business, large or small.

First, Mack destroys the myth that branding is your logo or your color palette. Then, he demonstrates how great branding works, so you won't waste your money on marketing that gets you nowhere. You'll learn a practical, commonsense approach to marketing that empowers you to develop your own brand with the same techniques and technologies the big players use—but without breaking the bank. In fact, the less you spend on marketing the more important these tools are to your success.

You'll discover tools to give you a competitive advantage as you strengthen the relationship between your customer and your products or services. Every encounter with your customer will deepen this bond, leading to even greater future sales. Great branding isn't just about the product you're selling now, but about maintaining the sales momentum into the product you'll be selling tomorrow. Think Two Products Ahead shows you how to align your business plan with your marketing plan, so you can keep customers indefinitely.

Using real examples from some of the most legendary (or disastrous) branding campaigns in history, Mack gives you an insider's perspective—and inside advice—on which tactics will float your brand and which will sink it. He sorts the bad advice from the good, letting you avoid those missteps that get good companies in bad trouble.

Branding isn't magic. Not since Jay Levinson's original Guerrilla Marketing book has an insider really spilled the beans and taught you how to use the professional grade tools that are so simple they work automatically. Think Two Products Ahead reveals inside secrets that make branding work for marketing budgets of any size—so you can grow your business faster and stronger than you imagined. When it comes to your brand, this insider's guide proves that if you aren't thinking two products ahead, you're hardly thinking at all.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (January 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470055766
• ISBN-13: 978-0470055762
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #328,150 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If only zero stars were an option..., November 29, 2007

By	Chris "Chris" - See all my reviews

The book is interesting enough. Nothing new. The main reason for the low rating is the terrible website that is mentioned throughout the book as offering additional resources.

To look at the web site, you have to give your email address, then they send you a link to a video that you could have gotten on You Tube without needing to give personal information.

Next, you have to give your Amazon receipt information - did that too, and it takes me to yet another page requiring my email and name. I signed up - and this time it takes me to a page saying there has been multiple sign ups from my computer - go figure - and that I might be an automated robot, so please fill in the code number from the image. Did that, and it takes me to a payment page - my "FREE" gift is now on special - only $47... What a bargain. Obviously this "marketing genius" misread his dictionary about the meaning of "free".

This book and website are a waste of time. There are much better books covering the same topic. Don't waste your money on this one.

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally a book about branding that an average business owner can use from the mouth of a branding and ad agency insider, January 21, 2007

By	Dave Lakhani "BoldApproach.com" (Boise, ID United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Think two products ahead is a powerful book, it will completely change your view of what branding is, how it works and whether or not you should do it.

You probably fall into one of five categories:

1. Branding is a waste of money
2. My company is too small to worry about branding
3. Branding is difficult and requires specialized attention from ad agencies
4. You are a direct marketer who lives by the idea that branding should NEVER be done in conjuction with direct marketing.
5. You have a feeling that you should be directing your brand but are not quite sure how.

And, if you've had any of those thoughts you need to read this book. Mack reveals the truth about big ad agencies and their "proprietary" branding strategies (and he should know, he worked on some of the biggest brands in the world, Cingular, Yomega Yo-Yos, and dozens more).

The book makes a very powerful point, your brand is not your logo or your colors or your tag lines, Ben calls those brand accessories. Your brand is actually something very palpable in the mind of your customers, it is the associations and attachments that they have with the experience you provide them, it is real in the way that they interpret it . . . and they'll interpret it however they want if you don't take control. Branding isn't about trying to get millions of people to remember your name or recognize your logo by the effective matching of pantone colors in an ad, it is getting people to have an experience that they'll remember, that they'll talk about through a conversation and words you'll control. Brands are influential and persuasive to the extent that you can control the experience of the person interacting with you and your company. Tell them what to say about you and how to say it and they will. Leave them to their own devices and they'll simply say whatever comes to mind or forget about you all together.

Think Two Products Ahead walks you through the process of creating your own legend platform, the basis from which you story is told and grows. The legend platform is crucial to the success of your brand, it is the base of the pyramid from which the rest of the structure of your messaging will be built and seen.

What I love about this book is the methodical approach, the way Ben sets up, draws you through and then systematically reveals what your legend, your brand really is. And he shows you how to make your brand know regardless of the size of your company or marketing budget.

This is a must read marketing book and I'm confident destined to become an entrepreneurial classic.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You have a brand whether you think you do or not..., April 15, 2007

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's relatively easy to get someone to make a single purchase from you. But how do you instill that long-term loyalty and love that causes people to refuse to buy from anyone else? Ben Mack talks about that and many other branding issues in the book Think Two Products Ahead: Secrets the Big Advertising Agencies Don't Want You to Know and How to Use Them for Bigger Profits. It's an unconventional book that doesn't mince words...

Contents:
Pool Hall Wisdom; Brand Misinformation versus Back-End Thinking; The Common Thread and Thinking Two Products Ahead; Branding? Be Good to Your Gander; Branding Processes Are Strikingly Similar; What's a Brand Essence?; Legendary Branding; Extracting a Brand Essence; The Kama Sutra of Marketing - Five Basic Positions; Framing to the Right Target Audience; Structured Creativity - Framing Tools; Creativity on Demand - Why Ad Agencies Can't Brainstorm; Feed Their Passions; Plan to Have Many Conversations; Everything Communicates; Storytelling - Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle; Branding and Thinking Two Products Ahead; Myth, Magic, and Making Money the Old-Fashioned Way; AKS; Jeff Lloyd's Secret to Commercial Residential Real Estate Sales; How to Turn Every First Sale into a Residual Stream of Income; Direct Response Branding; Acknowledgements; Index

Mack states that successful branding comes when you start thinking two products ahead of the current sale. In other words, you need to be thinking about the overall story and impression that your company and product leaves with a customer. This collection of legends and perceptions defines your brand, not the cute logo or corporate colors you stick on your products. What that means is that you *have* a brand whether you think you do or not. You need to bring your customer into the "marketing funnel", which is a four stage process: intrigue, consider, interested, and buy. When you get them to buy, then the "two products ahead" mindset turns them from one-off buyers to loyal customers. It's all a matter of managing your brand... the story that your customers tell about your company and product.

This book started off as an e-book that the author marketed himself (for a much higher price). His style of writing and communication is frank and blunt, with no room for dancing around an issue. As such, it's a lot of fun to read. Since I don't have a marketing background, I found it a little difficult to keep the finer points of marketing vs. branding vs. selling straight at times. But overall, I got the message that your brand is a priceless asset, and it's important to do everything you can to make sure that brand says the right thing to your customer.

A valuable read for any business, but especially for the small business owner who doesn't think he has a brand... he does.