The End of Marketing as We Know It
by Sergio Zyman

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Book Reviews of The End of Marketing as We Know It

Book Review: Finally, someone is asking advertisers to sell something
Summary: 5 Stars

I'm guilty and I'll bet you are too.

As a matter of fact, almost every business is guilty of not demanding results from advertising. We've been lulled into believing that marginal results are not only expected-they're acceptable. It's time to change all that.

I've been producing advertising for a little over 25 years now, and I've come to the conclusion that we've gotten soft. I constantly get requests from clients for advertising, knowing that it's not going to do much to sell anything. And until now, I've frequently been guilty of going along with their request and collecting the checks. (To be perfectly honest, it's pretty easy.)
It's time to change all that.

Sergio Zyman said it best: Advertising and marketing should "sell more stuff to more people more often for higher prices."

I've read all the "big books" on marketing, branding and postioning and while they all have something to say, few of them grab you by the collar and tell you that advertising and marketing have to sell something. Zyman nails it.

While you won't find a lot of fuzzy theory here and it may not lead you to your next consulting gig, this book will cut through the stuff with which we've all grown far too comfortable.

After reading "The End of Marketing as We Know It" I took a major step by refusing to produce advertising that doesn't specifically and intentionally lead to a sale. If you'll be honest with yourself, you'll probably see that you're guilty of getting soft.

Thanks to Zyman, I'm looking for a few clients that will challenge me and allow me to challenge them. Our goal is to produce outstanding advertising that returns measurable results. It's going to be very hard work and require a dogged commitment on each of our parts. Our goal won't be to produce clever, creative, moving, flashy or cute for the sake of "the art." (Although we'll employ any combination of those things to make sure we're attracting the right response from the right people.) We'll focus on results. In the end, we're all going to wonder why we hadn't done it sooner.

Can we do it? I know we can. I've done it over and over on those occasions when businesses and organizations were in trouble and had an urgent need to increase sales, contributions or support.

If you're looking for a flashy agency and someone that will always agree with you, we're not interested. If you're looking for some people that will sweat with you and challenge you as you challenge us-we just might be able to get some things done.

Summary of The End of Marketing as We Know It

Marketing today doesn't work. Or so says the "Aya Cola," Sergio Zyman, former marketing czar of Coca-Cola and quite possibly the most famous marketing gadfly in the world. Brilliant, irascible, unconventional, Zyman is best known for reinventing the Coca-Cola Company's marketing approach by spearheading the global launches of Diet Coke, New Coke, Classic Coke, Fruitopia, and Sprite. Now, in this brisk and revolutionary book, Zyman shows why old approaches to marketing have lost their fizz--and how to get a jump on the strateies that will work in the twenty-first century.

Zyman explores such topics as:

• Why feel-good marketing is pointless unless it results in sales
• Why marketing is a science not an art
• How a well-honed strategy is more important to success than what ads say
• And much more

For Zyman, marketing is not an art, it's a business. "Marketing is a strategic activity and discipline focused on the endgame of getting more consumers to buy your product more often so that your company makes more money." He sees too many marketers who don't understand this point, who are too concerned about projecting image when they should really be focused on producing sales. Zyman peppers the book with stories about various campaigns at Coke as well as assessments of companies that get it, such as Starbucks and Southwest Airlines, to companies that don't, for example, Nissan and Levi's. He believes that the old-style marketing of Madison Avenue is dead, that it no longer has the "ability to move the masses," that in today's "consumer democracy" there are simply too many choices. Instead, marketers will have to focus on sales, conversion rates, targeting customers, and creating value for shareholders. The End of Marketing As We Know It is not a primer on how to do better marketing; rather, it's a reordering of priorities so that good marketing will be done in the first place. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

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