Anyone close to me will tell you that I am a huge reader of everything from books to magazines to blogs.  So it is no surprise that a question I often get is:

“What should a Marketer be reading?”

To answer that, I added the Amazon widget to my blog sidebar a few months ago.  But since a good number of RSS Readers never even make it to the site, I thought it would be helpful to write them up in a post as well.  With that, here are:

My Dozen Books for a Brand Manager’s Bookshelf

1.) A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-First Century by Scott Bedbury

This is one book on branding that I turn to time and time again.  Scott was a senior marketer at both Starbucks and Nike during the days when their brands were truly shaped.  His thoughts on “Brand Mantra” alone are worth the cover price.

2.) Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Personally I don’t think Gladwell has ever written a bad book.  His latest is yet another example of why that holds true.

3.) Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Lots of marketers can fall into the trap of chasing “shiny objects” in the digital space.  Groundswell puts an end to that practice by giving Brand Managers a structured way to approach Social Media.

4.) Reality Check – The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki

It might be a book written for entrepreneurs initially, but it is really the perfect read for “Embedded Entrepreneurs” in companies everywhere.

5.) Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World by Pete Blackshaw

I am fortunate enough to list Pete as a friend and mentor so this might be a biased endorsement.  But all the same, Pete gives a wake-up call to the industry to start really paying attention to what consumers are saying in this new world.

6.) What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

It’s not a book just about Google, but instead a look at the mindset that has driven Google to become one of the most dominant companies in today’s digital landscape.  That is something any Brand Manager can learn from.

7.) Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business! by Paul Gillin

A follow-up to his first book, The New Influencers, Gillin writes a book that is probably hated by anyone calling themselves a “Social Media Consultant.”  This simple, easy to use guide about navigating online conversations and communities makes the space sound dramatically simpler than the “experts” make it out to be.

8.) Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe

If you haven’t thought about the dramatic impact that Crowdsourcing and Wisdom of the Crowds is going to have on your business, you need to pick up this book right now.  Simple as that.

9.) Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands by David Vinjamuri

I consider this inspiration for how to be extraordinary in business.  This book outlines the amazing stories of brands like Clif Bar, Columbia Sportswear and Burt’s Bees.

10.) The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World by Kelly Mooney

The President of Columbus, Ohio based Resource Interactive, Kelly is a thought-leader in the brand and agency space when it comes to new models of marketing.  It is a great look at how “to open up to consumer involvement in a brand’s messages and offerings.”

11.) Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

I’d be surprised to find a marketer who hasn’t read Seth Godin before.  If not, Tribes is his latest and Purple Cow is one of his all-time classics.  All his works are short, quick reads…a welcome change of pace compared to most other business books.

12.) The End of Marketing as We Know It by Sergio Zyman

Zyman is literally one of the first marketing authors I ever read so his books have a special place on this list.  As the former CMO of Coca-Cola, his writings are what taught me that “Marketing is not an art, it’s a business.”

The other week, the folks at Doubleday sent me a review copy of Martin LIndstrom’s latest book Buyology (side note: as I huge reader, I must say that free books might just be the greatest perk/reward I can think of for blogging).  Now I hadn’t read anything by Lindstrom before, but I was fascinated by his claim to be a “Brand Futurist” and the sub-title of his latest book – “Truth & Lies About Why We Buy.”  I was further intrigued after reading how Amazon described the book:

How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today’s message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we’re barely aware of them?

In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy.

I had a chance to read the book last week while traveling to the Forrester Consumer Forum and overall I have to give it good marks.  Here are just a few of the random tidbits I found most interesting:

• When studying the sponsorship of American Idol, Lindstrom found huge differences in the impact for Coke and Ford.  Overall, Coke’s product placement had a measurable impact given its blatant appearance throughout the show.  Ford on the other hand actually had a negative impact, causing people to be less likely to buy a Ford.  Not a good impact for a $26 million investment.
• Mirror neurons can become activated not only when observing other people’s behavior, but also when reading about it.  So when I type yawn, there is a good chance you are going to yawn or at least have the beginning stirrings of a yawn!
• Kit-Kat has had huge success in the Far East because it is close to “Kitto-Katsu”. which roughly translates to “Win without fail.”  As a result, students in Japan believe that eating a Kit-Kat before they take an exam will help them score higher.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Buyology [Martin Lindstrom]
• Buyology by Martin Lindstrom
• Book Review: Buy-ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

Via Amazon

Recently Paul Gillin, the author of The New Influencers, offered up 250 free galley copies of his latest book Secrets of Social Media Marketing.  The book arrived right before we left Arkansas and it turned out to be a great read for the road.  What I loved most was the honesty from Gillin upfront.  As he wrote in the beginning:

This book isn’t intended for the 10% of marketers who are on the leading edge.  It’s for the 90% who are still figuring out how to start.

Along these lines, Paul bluntly calls out the book as a “How To” guide for marketers to get into Social Media.  I think this step by step approach is exactly what most Brand Managers need and it is something that has been missing from most social media books out there.

Now with that in mind, here are my favorite quotes and facts from Secrets of Social Media Marketing:

“Embracing change is the only sure success strategy in a business world that is evolving faster than we have ever known.”

“[Marketers] spent decades refining tactics built around messages…they are now being told messages don’t matter.  They need to become Chief Conversation Officers.”

“It took 40 years for the TV to reach 2/3 of homes in the US.  The Internet did it less than 15 years.”

“47% of marketers cited ‘fear of loss of control’ as an impediment to social media adoption”

“Jupiter Research estimates that $12 billion dollars worth of TV advertising is blown away by TiVo and similar devices in 2007″

“Many marketers measure their importance and influence by the size of their budgets.  Social media campaigns are so cost-efficient that marketers may actually see their budgets – and their status – fall over time.  While this doesn’t make much sense, it is a fact of corporate life.”

And finally, I love this quote from my good friend and fellow P&G’er, Ted McConnell:

“How much control do you give up?  That’s like asking the person holding you up at gunpoint how much money to give them.” @ ad:tech 2006

Needless to say, this book has quickly gone to the top of my must read list for Brand Managers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Secrets of Social Media Marketing – new book by Paul Gillin!
• Going Offline: 5 Books on Corporate Social Media
• Paul Gillin’s marketing book up in draft
• While I Talked, People Twittered