Radical Marketing: From Harvard to Harley, Lessons from Ten That Broke the Rules and Made It Big

How did the Grateful Dead use its fanatical following to build a $100 millionbrand that still thrives today? How did upstart Boston Beer Company--makers of Sam Adams--prevail over rival Anheuser-Busch without an advertising budget? And how did lams create the premium pet food market and leap from $16 million to $600 million in sales in just fifteen years, while charging twice the price of competitor Ralston-Purina? The answer: radical marketing.

In this fresh, provocative book, Sam Hill and Glenn Rifkin identify the mar-keting strategies that have enabled ten innovative companies to emerge asindustry leaders. What do these organizations have in common? Each is intune emotionally with its customer base, allowing them to glean superior marketing insight without spending millions of dollars. Each is more focused on the big picture--growth and expansion--rather than short-term profits. And,despite their current success, each started out with little more than a passion for their product. Engrossing, informative, and invaluable, Radical Marketing demonstrates how any company, large or small, can achieve unprecedented success through inventive and revolutionary tactics.

Citing organizations such as Snap-on Tools, Harvard Biz School, Boston Beer Company, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and the NBA, the authors build a solid case for anew breed of marketers with more intuition and vision than marketing education. The case studies are insightful and always entertaining. In fact, the chapter on Harley Davison's recovery from near bankruptcy in 1985 to $1.8 billion revenue and record profits in 1997 might just be worth the price of the book. Similarly, Jerry Garcia fans will love the well argued discussion of the Grateful Dead as radical marketers.

The books main weakness is its lack of concrete `next steps' for the aspiring radical marketer. It also has little to offer (outside of the case studies) for the already radical. If you read just one marketing book a year - skip this one. But, if you enjoy well-researched and entertaining case studies, `Radical Marketing' is definitely worth a look.


Marketing = Advertising = consumes huge amount of money ?   March 26, 2002
On Ki, Lau (Department of Marketing, City University of HK)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

It is always said that Marketing always consumes huge amount of money. It is because most of the marketer used the traditional marketing strategies, such as advertising, which need large amount of money.

However, after you read this book, you will disagree with the above statement. It is because you will find that there are lots of other marketing strategies which are also very useful but do not cost so much money. This book gave you lots of ideas and examples about radical marketing which would help you to build relationship with customers through different kind of strategies.

And I particularly agree with one of the rules mentioned by the author. That is the marketer should go out the office and interactive with the customers. Since customer is one of the most important assets for the company. And the customers nowadays change rapidly. So it is very important for the marketer to interactive with the customers so as to understand the customer need or any changes of the customer needs. And actually, I think that this concept should not be only applied to radical marketing . Instead, all marketers should pay attention to this point and consider taking action.


Shorter will be better   October 27, 2001
To Hoi Yan (Hong Kong)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Actually, it is quite interesting and attractive that author use ten successful companies as an example to promote radical marketing. And we can learn that to run a business successfully, it is not only spend a lot of money on advertising, but also keep a good relationship with the customers and provide a good quality product. As most of the company just promote its products and company on advertising, I think it is a good way for others company to follow.
However, although there are ten case studies, after reading half, I m not really want to continue as all of the cases are similar. These ten companies stay at a similar situation, just face a difficulty and then using similar tactics that is radical marketing to tackle the problem. Therefore, it will be better if the author come up the points in fewer cases.


Shorter will be better   October 20, 2001
To Hoi Yan (Hong Kong)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Actually, it is quite interesting and attractive that author use ten successful companies as an example to promote radical marketing. And we can learn that to run a business successfully, it is not only spend a lot of money on advertising, but also keep a good relationship with the customers and provide a good quality product. As most of the company just promote its products and company on advertising, I think it is a good way for others company to follow.
However, although there are ten case studies, after reading half, I m not really want to continue as all of the cases are similar. These ten companies stay at a similar situation, just face a difficulty and then using similar tactics that is radical marketing to tackle the problem. Therefore, it will be better if the author come up the points in fewer cases.