How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know

I was skeptical of this book, and put off reading for sometime. My reason was that although acquisition and penetration seems to be at the core of the message, as big brands having a slight edge on retention than smaller ones (I saw some youtube's by professor Sharp), the book is not available in Kindle. Anybody writing a book and really wanting to acquire bunch of new audience probably shouldn't say no to a channel that controls 70-80% of the e-reader market. I tweeted to prof Sharp and he had his reasons, mostly centered around the formatting of the book being harder on Kindle, which might be the case ( Although I believe Amazon is way too advanced for not formatting charts and tables correctly, and I have self published my daughters poems, it was very easy). Moving on beyond why I didn't read the book early on. I think this book is absolutely fantastic read. It is written in a matter of fact way, with data points for every argument it makes. It was recommended by Dr. Fader (Wharton School) , after I asked him a certain question, and I had to change my mind and actually read it. He was spot on. Lot of the findings in the book are very close to what I have seen in practical data. If you are in midst of digital advertising revolution and working on a relatively smaller brand this book will clear your head on some misconceptions or lets say popular notions of brand building and may give you new ideas on how to go about it. I rather not summarize the book in my review, but I think the book gives the reader different ideas on the few questions such as retention vs acquisition, understanding the relation ship of cross selling to customer base, how much to sweat on retention and defection, focusing and trying to acquire a certain customer segment relative to brand size. In short, I would say whether you agree with the book or not, it is a must read.

Seminal book. How brands grow is a fantastic read on an objective view of what drives growth. I have seen several examples of evidence based marketing and growth, out of following the guidance provided. A must read for any marketer and market researchHow brands grow is a fantastic read on an objective view of what drives growth. I have seen several examples of evidence based marketing and growth, out of following the guidance provided. A must read for any marketer and market researcher.

There is more nonsense written about branding that almost any other area of business books. Most books seem to focus on the same brands - Apple and Harley Davidson and leave it to the reader to work out how to translate that magic to their own product. Well this book does not. Byron Sharp uses his many years as a researcher to deliver a really useful analysis of brands and how you market them. It's well written, full of meaningful data and it's useful. Some of the sections are so counter intuitive I needed to read them and then think it through and then return to the chapter to re-read before I was able to integrate the learning. That's not a criticism the book is well written and easy to read but some of the concepts need work to truly understand. If you are a marketer you do need to read this book. It should be mandatory in every school, university or branding course.

Brand marketers often speak of "our customers" as if there is a group of people out there who have some sort of at least semi-permanent relationship with their brand. Attempts to identify these people (segmentation) and target them with marketing are misguided in the sense that there is an incredible amount of fluidity reflected in the composition of your share of the market. Byron Sharp speaks to issues like this with practical insights derived from decades of evidence compiled and analyzed by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science (and others.) As a scientist myself, I recognize this book as solid science in a world of "received wisdom." His willingness to make statements like, "It is surprising that these sorts of artificial [laboratory] studies are still being done," is refreshing. One of hundreds of gems: "Finally, the decision to drop, phase out or sell brands should be based on viability, cost and operating issues and not on how similar the brand is to another of the company's brands. This is especially true if the brands are well established with substantial market-based assets." I heartily agree with Joseph Tripodi, CMO of Coke, when he says, "read this book . . . or be left hopelessly behind."

A truly thought-provoking book. Compelling insights!

The first half of the book is better than the second, I.e., it seems that the author lost deep insights and empirical research roughly halfway in the book and then rushed with unbaked hypothesis that were more generalities than insights. Good read for most parts.

I've been a marketing and branding practitioner for 30+ years and I've read literally hundreds of the most 'notable' marketing texts from the leading academics in the business. This book was recommended by a highly respected researcher and if he hadn't mentioned it I probably would never have read the book. Let me just say that we rarely get many marketers who are brave enough to take a contrarian's point of view on delicate marketing subjects. Byron Sharp takes on some of the real heavy hitters from HBS and other leading business schools and he does it with outstanding proprietary research and rich third party data. The book now has me wondering what other leading thought leaders I've been impressed by whose work is also suspect. Other reviewers on these pages can give you specific examples of Sharp's notable findings. I can only give you my recommendation...buy and read this book!

I appreciated the math and science behind the myth-busting of marketing teachings, but I found myself wanting more examples of brands who actually grew over time that broke away from the draw of the mean.

I would like to thanks Prof. Sharp for challenging the theoretical perspectives in marketing ideologies and providing real life empirical evidence for promotion growth of the brand. Very much fascinating and exciting data being put forward, helpful for academician and practitioners.

Good book for people in marketing or brand managers

Probably among the top 10 best marketing books ever red, along with Consumer connection, Cultural branding, etc. Altough some short-cuts are taken, and some chapters repeat themselves, it is an amazing though-provoking book for anyone who has gone through the dogma books of Kotler & like.

A must read book for any business leader

Both this and the second book in this series helped me realize a lot of the errors in the modern "digital marketing" business that are leading to both SMB and large enterprises to lose massive amounts of money chasing bad marketing ideas down bad roads. This is a quick and easy read and is worth 100s of most of the other marketing dreck out there.