A helpfully practical and authoritative introduction to the marketing of scientific products.
Chabe, a veteran marketing consultant, explains how scientists can effectively sell their ideas commercially.
The author notes a burgeoning trend of “science-driven entrepreneurial ventures,” a trend that poses special challenges for scientists unaccustomed to marketing. She calls this problem the “exposure conundrum,” in which the scientific labor that leads to a new discovery seems categorically different from the work of garnering recognition for it. In order to bridge the gap, the author, with impressive breadth and meticulous attention to detail, sketches a vision of what she calls the “distinct discipline of science marketing”—a comprehensive set of strategies aimed at scientists. She breaks her treatment into three basic “pillars.” First, one must precisely identify a target audience for whom the product is most relevant, she says. Second, one must figure out the product’s “frame,” or the “value vow,” which articulates the needs and desires that the product will satisfy. Thirdly, she concludes, one must locate the best channels to connect with the target audience. Chabe’s discussion is remarkably wide-ranging and covers not only brand storytelling and campaign strategy, but also the basics of website analytics and the opportunities of trade shows. She convincingly advocates for a marketing approach that blends the analytical rigor of science with the creative presentation of “resonant themes,” and she speaks with clarity about the challenges of presenting technically prohibitive ideas to an audience that may not be familiar with them. She keenly understands the peculiar nature of competition in the science world, which includes not only rivals in the conventional sense, but also “indirect challenges,” such as technological obstacles and resistance to innovation.
Chabe is the founder and CEO of High Touch Group, one of the few marketing firms to specialize in science marketing, and she writes confidently from a wealth of experience and obvious expertise. Despite the book’s brevity and concision, it’s almost encyclopedically thorough, which makes it a perfect one-volume reference for newcomers to the subject. The author intends the book to be a practical guide with actionable counsel conveyed in straightforward, accessible language, and she accomplishes all these things. She achieves even more, however, by reflecting thoughtfully on the ways in which superior science marketing not only makes life easier for scientists with products to peddle, but also improves the world at large: “It can galvanize individuals, communities, and even nations to align behaviors and policies with scientifically backed solutions. Marketing amplifies the voice of science, enabling it to resonate in places that matter most—from board room to policy chambers to kitchen tables.” The world certainly has no shortage of popular books about marketing, but very few speak specifically to science marketing while also avoiding vague reductionism and facile formulas. Chabe’s contribution is intellectually rigorous and free of the condescension and hyper-generality that typify so many other books in the genre. Anyone who works at the intersection of science and commerce is likely to benefit from reading this handbook with care.
A helpfully practical and authoritative introduction to the marketing of scientific products.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781642256024
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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