Juicing the Orange

I read a book recently called, Juicing the Orange, How to Turn Creativity into Powerful Business Advantage, by Fallon Senn. Of course it is about marketing.

This is a book by people for ad agencies and engages in a lot of self-congratulations about the brilliant marketing they have done. (although I have to admit, some of it is brilliant)

One suggestion they make that is totally valid is hit the road with customers. That is not only to visit customers but to look how customers use your specific products.

Senn tells the story of how BMW put on a mini-Utube type video on the internet that ended up with thousands of downloads and had huge impact.

From Michael P. Maslanka's Amazon review:

The Big Ideas: don't steal a competitor's emotion, find your own; ads must bear an A to B connection in more revenue generation; take risks to survive because incremental change will kill you.

The chapter on Lee Jeans is one of the best: trust the focus groups when they have passion(here, teenagers want to feel indestructible in their jeans); don't ape the competition(the strong desire to be sexy like levi's); don't be afraid to go to your roots(here, bring back a doll icon from the compnay's past); and know, above all else, that emotions drive decisions---the reason is tacked on later.

If you are interested in marketing, it is a good, interesting read.

And a great failure quote that one of my good friends forwarded to me:

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt