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Meatball Sundae
Seth Godin
Piatkus
£12.99
ISBN: 9780749928315
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I've had some pretty rum meals in my time (deep-fried tarantulas anyone?),
but were I to try it, I can guarantee that a meatball sundae would be right up
there with them. Fortunately, the meatball sundae this book focuses on is just
a metaphor for trying to add sparkly, exciting new marketing (blogs, viral marketing
etc) to traditional products and services. Unfortunately, it is exactly what most
companies are serving up to their customers and then wondering why this new marketing
doesn't work.
Seth Godin, author of the seminal Permission Marketing and Purple Cow amongst others, returns with yet another stimulating book.
Central to Godin's latest book is his belief that new marketing (the sundae bit) requires more than just tinkering with the comms plan - it requires a fundamental rethink of how you structure your organisation and the products and services you provide (the meatball bit). He argues that markets and customers have changed radically, but many organisations are yet come to terms with this and properly align their activities.
After setting out his arguments, he takes you through 14 trends that you need to be thinking about, before running through various case studies.
One of his most illuminating examples is the Murder Ink bookstore in New York. Founded in 1972, this speciality store specialised in mystery books - the type of books the main high street players would only have a limited stock of. Hugely successful at first, Murder Ink went out of business recently due to several reasons - rising rents, a sophisticated high street bookshop just around the corner, and last but not least Amazon.
Godin argues that they went out of business because they were selling meatballs - a commodity anyone else could sell, especially with the advent of the internet. Had they embraced the internet, they could have taken their specialist knowledge global. Lovers of mystery from Montana to Maine, Mexico to Mongolia, could have got their books from a small store in New York that met their specific needs. They could have sent monthly emails to their devoted customers, with a selection of must-read books. They could have worked with publishers to develop content and events exclusive to their store. Their staff could have become bloggers and experts in the field, spreading their name across mystery lover communities everywhere.
Instead they stuck to the tried and tested and what they new best; selling meatballs. By failing to recognise the changes taking place and adapting their offering accordingly, they failed.
Even the largest organisations are not immune. Bud TV, as in an internet TV channel for the well-known beer, has cost $40 million to set up. Currently it generates about the same amount of site traffic as 'a comprehensive source for sheet rubber', with numbers falling rapidly. Just because you build it doesn't mean they will come.
Godin convincingly argues that mass marketing is increasingly ineffective and that selling average products to a mass audience is no longer going to generate growth - growth is increasingly being concentrated in either low-cost or luxury. Key to success is for marketers to recognise that dabbling in new marketing, trying to replicate the mass media formula that has worked so well for the last 40 years is a sure-fire recipe for failure.
'Ideas that spread through groups of people are far more powerful than ideas delivered at an individual.'
As accessible and illuminating as ever, Godin has again given marketers something to think hard about.
Review by John Ling
To order a copy please click here or call The Chartered Institute of Marketing's bookshop on + 44 (0)1628 427 427.
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