- Hardcover: 310 pages
- Publisher: Kogan Page (May 1 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0749439270
- ISBN-13: 978-0749439279
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 16.4 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 649 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#738,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Books > Professional & Technical > Business Management > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Product Management
- #34 in Books > Business & Investing > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Product Management
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
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
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
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The process of branding was developed to protect products from failure. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The process of branding was developed to protect products from failure. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Quick Read,
By
This review is from: Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time (Paperback)
This book provides a very brief snapshot (and I do mean brief - some are only a short paragraph) of marketing horror stories. The range of stories is nice - some are PR crises, some are product launches, many are outside of North America which is always nice. The lessons learned after each story are Haig's perspective, and certainly are not the "final word." You likely won't learn a tremendous amount of new information, but it is an entertaining way to be reminded of how easy it is to get it wrong. Be careful.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommended!,
By
This review is from: Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time (Hardcover)
Branding is a ubiquitous, but critical marketing function that can produce spectacular successes and catastrophic blunders. Highly visible branding failures, such as the ill-fated "New Coke" or Harley Davidson's silly attempt to peddle perfume, are first-order marketing blunders. Yet, while branding is critical, one wonders if branding alone, as author Matt Haig asserts, is the main reason Land Rover sales declined and General Motors stopped making Oldsmobiles. Other experts might address such failures from a more expansive perspective, citing financial, competitive, managerial, global and environmental factors. Haig notes that non-branding mistakes contribute to failure, but focuses on branding as the prime cause. As a result, his brand-centered explanations can seem strained, but he overcomes this concern with a long list of vignettes that effectively drive home important points about the causes of branding failures. We suggest this book to marketing, advertising, PR and customer service managers so they can learn from other people's mistakes.
5.0 out of 5 stars
What can be learned from such failures?,
By
This review is from: Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time (Hardcover)
What we have here in this especially interesting as well as informative book is Haig's version of "the truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time." With this subtitle, Haig immediately sets himself up for lively disagreement concerning (a) the reasons for why certain brands fail and (b) his selection of the failures themselves. I value this book so highly because Haig (by assertion or implication) challenges his reader to examine her or his own current problems with branding. Frankly, his explanation of brand failure makes sense to me and all of the 100 failed brands he discusses serve seem worthy of examination. He identifies what he calls "the seven deadly sins of branding": amnesia, ego, megalomania, deception, fatigue, paranoia, and irrelevance. One or more is evident in each of the 100 brand failures on which he focuses.Haig carefully organizes his material within ten chapters. It is easy enough for those who read this brief commentary to check out the Contents so I see no need to provide it. (Thanks Amazon!) He provides a "Lessons from...." section at the conclusion of most extended analyses. All of the usual suspects are discussed: New Coke, the Ford Edsel, Sony Betamax, McDonald's Arch DeLuxe, Campbell Soup (souper combo), Harley Davidson (perfume), Ben Gay (aspirin), Colgate (kitchen entrees). Pond's (toothpaste) in consumer products; as for dot.coms, Pets.com, VoicePod, and Excite@home. He even examines a number of PR fiascoes. I take at least three lessons from Haig's book. First, even the largest organizations with the greatest resources (including some of the brightest people) can make bad brand decisions and sometimes repeat them with another failed attempt. Although they may be able to absorb or overcome such brand failure, almost all small organizations cannot. Second, that most brand failures result from launching a new product which encounters insufficient demand or marketing a current product for which demand is declining. Hence the importance of market research and especially of asking the customer. Ford did almost no research before introducing the Edsel nor did Coca-Cola before launching New Coke. Both line extensions were disasters. The overwhelming feedback from children surveyed indicated that they did not want Barbie's Ken to wear an earring but Mattel inserted one anyway. The third lesson is that the key to a brand's success (be it a product or service) is it authenticity. (You may prefer the word credibility.) Notice how intensively-hyped films may do well at the box office the first weekend but if they are duds, their sales tumble the following weekend and they are inevitably off the Top Ten list within a month or so, if not sooner. People are willing to try something new if they trust the provider. Lose that trust and there may never be an opportunity to re-earn it. This is a lively, well-written, thought-provoking book. As I suggested earlier, its greatest value to each reader will be determined by what she or he has learned from Haig, and then, how much of that can be applied expeditiously and (more to the point) effectively.
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