Book Reviews

‘The New Rules of Marketing and PR’ by David Meerman Scott

There are some real gems and lots of good, solid, practical insights in this book. And I have to admit after some initial scepticism, this book is the first to provide me with real insight into how the Web, and blogging more specifically, can be used to aid PR and marketing strategies.

This said, I found Scott less good with the underpinning theory; he has a tendency to make a few too many assumptions and is a bit too loose with the generalisations. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, as it can make the writing ‘pacy’ and accessible. However, I would certainly take issue with the way he defines marketing. It’s a pretty one-eyed view, and to make matters worse its advertising he focuses on in the list he draws up detailing its shortcomings. At the best of times resorting to ‘man of straw’ arguments is dubious rhetoric, and initially this made me doubt the book’s ‘authenticity’ or thought leadership, as Scott would perhaps call it.

I would also argue that ‘interruption advertising’ still has its place both of itself and when integrated into Web-based strategies. The creative variations of Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ advertisement on YouTube offer an intriguing insight to what can be achieved.

The issue I have with Scott’s book is, that to begin, he is so concerned to argue the old marketing and PR rules are dead, that he dilutes the message about how the old and the new might be better integrated to deliver more effective communications, at whatever level of access. But by the end of the book, his more measured, thoughtful and sanguine approach had turned me around.

For me, Scott sums up his book in the following statement. The new publishing model on the Web is about. . . delivering content when and where it is needed and, in the process, branding you or your organization as a leader. When you understand your audience, those people who will become your buyers, you can craft an editorial and content strategy just for them. . . . In order to implement a successful strategy, think like a publisher.

Two final comments: understanding your audience is classic, ‘old marketing’. Secondly, thinking like a publisher is not exactly easy, but it’s what conventional PR attempts to achieve when crafting messages for its audiences. So, let’s be careful not throw out the baby with the bath water.

A copy of this review can be found on the Amazon website.

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‘Meatball Sundae’ by David Seth Godin

While not exactly mixing his metaphors, Seth Godin certainly comes close with the antithetical image he conjures up in the title of this book – as he did with ‘Purple Cow’. It’s an old rhetorical device. Nothing wrong with that if it gets your audience’s attention and you have something interesting to say. But whether I would describe what Godin has to say as ‘remarkable’, I’m really not sure.

There’s no denying Godin has a dynamic approach to getting his ideas across. And there are some ‘remarkable’ insights in this book, although many of them have appeared in his previous works. And whisper it quietly, many of them are often variations on well-established marketing theories.

What is special about this book is that Godin provides a real and practical sense of how the internet is changing perceptions about mar

keting. But in a desire to get our attention, and attain guru status he has a tendency to overstate his case. As with many business gurus there is also the tendency to resort to ‘common-sense’ assertion and easy-on-the-ear sound bytes.

For many of us on the European side of the ‘Big Pond’ the old marketing Godin writes about never quite had the hold it seemed to have in the States. And if you are a small business or SME (small & medium enterprise) it tends to be even less relevant. So, to a certain extent, I agree with Godin that much of the older, conventional marketing overstretched their big idea and now it is being found wanting. But I’m not sure it should be dispensed with altogether. And to be fair, Godin doesn’t really say this, although his rhetorical flourishes mean this point often gets lost.

My reservations about Godin’s book – and here I’m being rather ‘picky’ – is that some good ‘old marketing’ approaches, particularly those that have focused on the importance of building relationships, will have dropped off the radar when the ‘cream’ of the new marketing has begun to curdle. Now that’s really mixing your metaphors!

A longer version of this review can be found on the Amazon.co.uk website.