ALL BUSINESS IS LOCAL

A marketing instruction manual for small-business owners.

Quelch, a former Harvard Business School professor who now serves as dean of a business school in China, teams with Jocz, a current HBS research associate, to offer advice on marketing any product to any group of consumers. Satisfying paying customers who desire a local, meaningful connection with a product but also operate in a world of globalization could constitute a conundrum. Quelch and Jocz (co-authors: Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy, 2008) seek to transform this problem into an opportunity for greater profit. They open with the example of Real Madrid, the successful soccer club in Spain. Naturally, Spanish soccer fans feel a special kinship with the team; the authors understand that kinship, which includes an ownership interest by thousands of Spaniards, has been vital to the club’s many successes. But why stop there, the authors ask, when opportunities to market high-grade soccer play exist in dozens of other soccer-crazy nations. They explain how Real Madrid’s website, bolstered by social media, reaches out to soccer fans with spendable income in other nations across the world. Such a local/global mix can be exploited by almost any capitalist enterprise, but only with careful market research followed by actual marketing that offers something for just about everybody. The authors explain how to manage psychological place, physical place, virtual place and geographic place to build revenue flow. Because the intended audience is decision-makers inside business enterprises, other readers may need to dig through some jargon, as well as a hefty dose of repetition.

A clearly presented, mostly successful marketing text.