Customer Reviews

Warp-Speed Branding: The Impact of Technology on Marketing

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

 

 

The premise of this book is that brands can be developed in very short timeframes which is contrary to everything effective marketers know to be true. Only brand 'awareness' can be generated overnight; the 'identity' of the brand (that is, the brand's image and personality that set it apart from its competitors) is created and held in the consumer's mind only through time and experience. To set a proper foundation for sustainable brand identity, there is no viable substitute for long-term planning even among technology brands. High tech companies today compete on brand identity as much as they do on technological innovation; thus to treat the brand in such a fashion as Winkler suggests is detrimental to responsible brand management. Anyone can `build' a brand but Winkler's advice won't make a brand `relevant' to anyone but the manufacturer itself.

Winkler appears to be a closeted engineering-oriented client dressed up as an (alleged) advertising 'guru' as indicated by her thinking. Among those in the business who are known for brand advertising that truly engrosses the consumer rather than treats them as lemmings, Winkler's reputation is far from exemplary. What's more, her agency's creative product generally lacks insight and understanding, which is the first place one should look before assessing the strategic advice offered by an agency-based author. I suspect the agency does not employ any qualified account/brand planners as I imagine they'd be miserable.

I am a senior UK-based account planner on loan to a respected creative agency in California with several high profile technology clients. Whilst I agree that time to market is becoming increasingly short, I know from experience that Winkler's advice runs contrary to smart advertising development. It's just a recipe for fast advertising development, and there's already enough of that in the world. What we need are breakthrough ideas, not just more of the same. And breakthrough ideas rarely happen overnight and they certainly won't evolve from such whiplash thinking as evidenced in this book.

If I could rate this book with fewer than one star I would have. For proper branding and advertising advice, read `Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer' by Max Sutherland, `Marketing to the Mind' by Maddock and Fulton, `Positioning' by Ries and Trout, `Truth Lies and Advertising' by Jon Steel, or `Under the Radar' by Kirshenbaum and Bond.

when i first bought the book, i thought i had got a real winner. there were ideas on brand building but limited to the companies which the author had direct contact. and they talk too much about advertising and their personal work ethics..ridiculous!

The book assume and reader have a certain level of knowledge branding. It does not tell you how and why rather state only the what. The examples and case studies in this book is really pathetic. I feel that half of the book is certainly advertisement for the author's company. In conclusion, this book is definitely not worth reading if you do not have much time to spare.If you are serious about branding look somewhere else.

Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the flaws in this book more clearly: far too many technology companies attempted to build their "brand" overnight and could not survive the dot-com crash.

Winkler's advice appears more suited to the internal efficiency processes of ad agencies than it does to the strategic guidance such agencies could provide their clients. If I were a technology advertiser, I would be very wary of taking the advice of this book. Given that Winkler Advertising no longer exists should be cause for concern for anyone considering her as an advisor.

There are many credible marketing/brand-building books on the market today, most of which can be found on Amazon. If you want to get solid advice you can trust from an ad agency, read Truth Lies & Advertising from Jon Steel, Eating the Big Fish and The Pirate Inside from Adam Morgan, or Under the Radar from Kirschenbaum & Bond.

This book suggests that effective brands can be built overnight. It is very presumptuous, and also draws too heavily on the author's personal experiences. I don't know how many of her clients survived the dot-com crash on this thinking, but I would not bet my business on it. There are lots of brand-building books available on amazon.com (anything by David Aaker is a good bet) and you would be better served by more responsible advice from other sources.

I am involved and interested in marketing for high-tech companies and start-ups as a career and purchased this book to help me do very fast "branding" for a start-up. I was greatly disappointed to find most of the information relating to what is possible with technology such as fast information dissemination, and online collaboration, etc. That is good information for people who don't know this stuff is possible, but is not very useful for people looking for a marketing book that will tell you how to "brand" a product any faster than you would normally be able to do it.

I would label the book a "how to work more efficiently" type book for the advertising industry. Not at all useful given its title.

Advertising expert Agnieszka M. Winkler offers an insider’s perspective on how technology has changed marketing and advertising. Writing with clarity and confidence, she outlines the steps advertisers and marketers must take to keep pace. She cites high-profile companies like Dell Computers and Amazon as examples of brands that were built in months, not years. These examples illustrate her sometimes complex concepts, and make them more accessible. Unfortunately, she also devotes a large amount of space to what amounts to a commercial for an adverting software application that she’s trying to sell. But for readers who can stomach the pitch, we recommend this book to those who work in marketing, advertising, or related industries, and to those who are making the transition to technology-driven brand building. (Editor’s note: TeamToolz, one of the major resources covered in this book, is a pay-for-use service sold by the author.)

I never think that any book can offer perfect truth, especially in business disciplines. This book offers interesting examples and a new framework about branding issues. I truly believe that these are the experience accumulated by the author during all her past years. Even though I still believe that brand building and management needs quite a period of time, it is necessary for us to rethink how we should cope with the time compression environment. A good book is good because it can stimulate thinking, but not because it controls one's mind. In this aspect, the book does a good job.

Considering how dynamic the marketing profession is, it is amazing to me what an incrustation of outdated myths it supports. Agnieszka Winkler's book is helpful in demolishing some of these, and in doing so helping readers learn how to think through their complex branding issues, whether they're involved in technology or more conventional products and services. ---Gerry Khermouch, Editor, Brandweek magazine

It's about time that we can read what a superstar adwoman like Agnieszka Winkler has to say about the art and craft of Brand Advertising in the Information Age.

She's a hero to many in the profession, and "Warpspeed" brings her voice to a wider audience: including those who (wrongly) still think Madison Avenue is where the big advertising comes from...