An approachable primer with an upbeat tone, grounded in a mixture of cynicism and shrewdness.
A marketing expert explains why American consumers buy what they buy.
Beckwith (You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself, 2007, etc.) runs his marketing firm on principles that have attracted more than 20 clients from the Fortune 200, as well as start-up venture-capitalized companies. The author’s three basic principles revolve around childhood experiences (the love of play, love of surprise and love of stories); fitting into the overall culture (desire to be individualists some of the time, a part of groups some of the time, and wanting to feel optimistic); and wanting to see beauty in design. Consumer products aim to trigger happiness in potential buyers. After all, Beckwith writes, while the Enlightenment French expressed their goals with the phrase “liberty, equality and fraternity,” the new American nation embraced “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Marketers of products cannot rely on logic to sell. Consumers frequently decide based on their feelings rather than on evidence, “then reassemble the facts to support [their] decision.” Beckwith opens with an extended example involving the best clutch shooter in professional basketball. The author demonstrates that fans and even professional players believe Kobe Bryant fills that role, when statistics show that he is a misguided choice. The author explains that the reason Malcolm Gladwell’s books have become so successful is because he has figured out how to tap in to what American consumers want to read and hear. This book is reminiscent of Gladwell’s bestsellers, with the notable difference that Beckwith's interesting stories tend to be much more abbreviated than Gladwell’s. Beckwith discusses countless companies and their products, looking at how executives accumulate and lose fortunes through branding and positioning in the marketplace. For example, the author explains why Krispy Kreme doughnuts achieved remarkable popularity, only to then fall out of fashion. For many Krispy Kreme customers, the attraction derived not so much from the taste of the sweets as from the difficulty of finding Krispy Kreme stores. When the doughnuts no longer qualified as a cult item—caused by the corporate decision to sell them at Target and convenience stores—the idea of Krispy Kremes changed and the lure dissipated.
An approachable primer with an upbeat tone, grounded in a mixture of cynicism and shrewdness.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-56414-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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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IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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