Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58060
Bookshelf Marketing used to be about pleasing your customer, finding your market seg- ment, and determining your right "4P" formula of price, product, place, and promotion. No more, say two marketing professors, Indrajit Sinha of Temple University in the U.S. and Thomas Foscht of the Uni- versity of Graz in Austria. Writing in Reverse Psychology Marketing, they examine the new "anti-marketing" techniques that rely on building net- works of consumers and pulling in the customer by creating brand mys- tique. Not surprisingly, two trends that figure into the creation of brand mystique revolve around globaliza- tion and technology, which combine to help create worldwide social net- works of consumers who share prod- uct information and become fero- ciously attached to certain brands. "The moral for all companies is that they have to work on their product and brand superiority, price them reasonably, focus less on glitzy campaigns, and attempt to pull customers instead," the authors write. While this advice flies in the face of much conventional market- ing wisdom, the author points out that marketing is a discipline that's tied to the broader cultural sphere, which in turn is "volatile and dynamic." Change with the times, they advocate, or you'll have nothing left to market. (Palgrave MacMillan, $35) Communication is one of those skills that everyone prizes and few people seem to possess. How can you tell if you're a good com- municator? asks Diana Booher in The Voice of Authority. "You either clarify or confuse. You either moti- 70 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2007 "Learn, improve, disrupt" is the corporate slogan of China International Marine Containers Group (CIMC), which began as a small, struggling company but now controls 55 percent of the world market for shipping containers. CIMC's dramatic rise to prominence is only one of the stories told in Dragons at Your Door by Ming Zeng, a profes- sor at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Busi- ness, and INSEAD's Peter J. Williamson. They follow a handful of rising Chinese corporations that are using a complex, interconnected web of advantages to challenge established corporations around the globe. "Their tool of choice is cost innovation: the strategy of using Chinese cost advantage in radically new ways to offer custom- ers…dramatically more for less," the authors write. They examine a handful of Chinese com- panies that have figured out how to bring volume pricing strategies to bear on high-tech, custom- ized, and specialty products, thus encroaching on previously untouchable segments of the market. Zeng and Williamson's utterly fascinating book does not set up a West versus East dynamic, but rather explores the way the Chinese dragons will change the world economy for everyone and how established multinationals can learn from them and respond before it's too late. (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95) vate or demoralize. You either gain buy-in or gener- ate distrust." It's axiomatic that a book about commu- nication had better be easy to understand, and this one is. Making her points with remarkable clarity and directness, Booher insists that communica- tion must adhere to ten C's: It must be correct, complete, consistent, credible, current, clear, not purposefully unclear, not cir- cular, and come from a source that appears competent and concerned. Her examples of bad communica- tion are funny, infuriating, and painfully familiar, but her advice is forthright and uncompromis- ing. "Communicate like you brush your teeth," she says. "Make it a habit. … Get a system, a channel, a structure, a timetable that works for you." (McGraw Hill, $19.95) Can cell phones eliminate global poverty? There's some evidence that they've already made a dent. In You Can Hear Me Now, Nicholas P. Sullivan chronicles the founding and impact of GrameenPhone, the cell phone network that has helped put 18 million phones into the hands of Bangladesh citizens, many of them