I read most of this book on the way back from a holiday in the US – which is appropriate as the style is very American, despite being written by two Dutch Unilever alumni.
Much of the content is excellent and is relevant if you’re a global brand director, a chief marketing officer (CMO) or simply an aspirant. The book’s strengths include the case studies and actual CMO insight on growing and managing brands such as Starbucks, OMO, P&G, Dulux and HSBC. There are also some useful models and frameworks and much good discussion of how to balance the often conflicting business and personal objectives of global and local teams.
Some of the authors’ assertions are questionable, for example, “today a company in Mumbai can easily market its products to a potential customer in Brazil”. Marketers don’t find it “easy” to market across borders even when territories share a common(ish) language and many cultural traits, for example the UK and the US.
The authors also run a consultancy which gets a little bit too much coverage at the start of the book (I have no doubt they are both excellent consultants) and rather frustratingly the book refers regularly to their ‘proprietary survey’ without saying much about the nature of that survey (although there is an impressive list of participants).
But my main criticism is the copy style. It’s written in American ‘business bookese’, and littered with jargon and clichés – for example what does “recalibrate the marketing organisation to increase global leverage and effectiveness” actually mean?
So, some good, useful content, but the style is a bit hard going at times – and that is important when there are over 300 pages to read. Having said that, if I was a global CMO I’d probably make the effort.
The Global Brand CEO by Marc De Swaan Arons and Frank Van Den Driest, Airstream, £21.95
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