Brand_Failures.html

Product Description

"This book is a lot of fun ... Haig wants to educate as well as to entertain, and at this he succeeds. ... Anyone with a professional interest or involvement in brand management should read this book." -- Anthony Di Benedetto, Professor of Marketing, Temple University in Journal of Consumer Marketing
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #813357 in Books
* Published on: 2003-05
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 310 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A goldmine of helpful how-not-to advice which you ignore at your own peril." -- Laura Ries, President, Ries & Ries, Marketing Strategists

"A must buy for marketers." -- Peter Doyle, Professor of Marketing & Strategic Management, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Review
"Haig, a marketing consultant, is one of a new breed of writers producing marketing primers for the hyphenated age of e-marketing. This type of work is characterized by breezily written snippets of success or failure as either encouragement or admonition for the practitioner or for a new category of reader: the business voyeur. Thus these works are written in a readable and appealing format, as e-business fables. Examining 'the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time, ' Haig organizes these 100 "failures" into ten types, each with its own moral and admonition. These types include classic failures (e.g., New Coke), idea failures (e.g., R.J. Reynolds' smokeless cigarettes), extension failures (e.g., Harley Davidson perfume), culture failures (e.g., Kelloggs in India), and technology failures (e.g., Pets.com). The idea behind this work is that with knowledge these failures can be avoided, but this reviewer regards it as akin to Monday morning quarterbacking in its validity as an activity. None of this takes away the schadenfreude of this well-written, quick read. Useful more as a cultural artifact than classroom text, this book could serve as supplementary reading for advanced marketing courses and for business voyeurs who like a good read. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduate and graduate students; and practitioners." -- S. A. Schulman, CUNY Kingsborough Community College

About the Author
Matt Haig is an acclaimed author and journalist. His books include: E-PR: The Essential Guide to Public Relations on the Internet; Mobile Marketing: the Message Revolution; and The E-marketing Handbook (all Kogan Page).
Customer Reviews

Very interesting5
It is always good to know about brand failures. This is an excellent not-to-list that every marketing manager should read. I consider very wise to have a copy of this book on your desk. Furthermore, it is pretty fun to read.

Not Worth Your Time Or Money. 1
Matt Haig reveals no new insight into branding or marketing. I would rate this book a 4/5 as entertaining toilet reading, but if this book was suppose to teach a marketer something new, then it is simply an insult to you intelligence.

What pissed me off the most was the lack of substance in the case studies and the sheer amount of promotion for his buddies books - most notably Al Ries. Why am I reading the your book when I can just get his and save myself the frustration.

I am trying to remember a single good piece of advice and can't. Unless you're a complete amateur or a total idiot this book isn't for you. I've seen fliers with better information.

Don't Waste Your Time.

Could have been much, much better.2
I went into reading this book with the highest of expectations both because of the other reviews on it and because I am really interested in the topic.

It started out interestingly enough but quickly went downhill. The first few case studies were pretty in depth and interesting but towards the middle of the book they got really short and shallow. It is almost as if the writer became impatient with his own book. If you don't want to write in detail about 100 brands then just don't. Write in depth about a handful but make the case studies meaningful.
The subtopics were also not logical for me. For me a better format would have been: Chapter one / Lesson one: Research your market. Then give some examples of brands that failed to do so. Chapter two / lesson two: Kill the product not the brand. Then some examples. And so on. But it was not arranged like that. In fact none of the lessons seemed to tie together that well. Surely the author could have found some more logical groupings.
Overall I give the book two stars.