[.ca] Big Brands Big Trouble: Lessons Learned the Hard Way (ISBN 0471263036)

From Amazon.com:
Despite impressive triumphs over the years, leading companies like General Motors, Xerox, and Levi Strauss have also stumbled badly at times. In Big Brands, Big Trouble, Jack Trout points out their biggest missteps as well as the critical lessons that can be learned from them. In his typically no-nonsense manner, Trout--a "positioning" expert who has written numerous bestselling books on the topic and served as a consultant to several of these firms--lays out the myriad errors that caused them and other giants to lose ground in the fight for success. Helpful specifics abound, such as in the chapter on Crest, in which Trout notes how the toothpaste's one-time dominance slipped away when consumer concern over cavities gave way to worries about discoloration, bad breath, and gum disease (which other brands more effectively set themselves up to attack). The lessons Trout takes from this are threefold: even winning positions must occasionally evolve; knowledge of how leadership was initially attained must always be maintained; and competitors must never be given an angle to exploit. Likewise, the section on Burger King discusses how turnover at the top, inconsistent advertising messages, and a loss of focus on how to assault the industry leader resulted in a stagnation that has perpetually mired the chain as a fast-food also-ran. "It's a fact of life that the easiest idea to overlook is the obvious one," Trout notes in this chapter. Since most ideas are apparent only in retrospect, however, his insights should prove invaluable to readers who might easily make similar mistakes. --Howard Rothman

Straight to the Point-What Companies should do to thrive and:
Prosper (Prosper is last word of title of review) Time Pressured, Overloaded with Information and media outlets, and now Osamaed, Americans need to work and live more efficiently and exhuberantly than ever. How can you improve your business or learn to keep your company competitive in a short period of time? Take one to 1 1/2 hours to read: Big Brands, Big Trouble. It gets right to the point in offering the best advice for companies that want to grow and prosper, or at the very least, maintain their market share. There is no flowery language, textbook talk, academic lingo-only solid strategies based on years of experience working admidst the most well-known brands. Trout is not afraid to point out the mistakes of companies who spend millions of dollars on marketing programs and research yet move no further along in market share or stock value. See what happened to companies that were once on the Fortune 500 list but are now part of some amorphous holding company or conglomerate. What lessons can be learned from their mistakes? Easy to read, with a touch of humor, Big Brands Big Trouble provides concrete business strategies and actionable plans for the most busy among us. Jack Trout's intelligence and marketing savvy cuts through all jargon and provides the best business advice anyone working with any brand will need.

Packed with Knowledge!:
Jack Trout, head of the marketing firm Trout & Partners, digs for details about the major reasons big brands run into trouble and just how enormous companies mess up by handling their signature standard-bearers badly. He runs down the litany: mistaken extensions of the brand name, failures to differentiate the brand's qualities and loss of clarity about just what a brand represents. His failure sagas are mini-novels based inside Xerox, General Motors, AT & T, Digital Equipment, General Mills and Coca-Cola. Remember New Coke? Now that was a branding debacle. Trout highlights corporate shortcomings and lays the blame for branding woes right at the feet of people who should have known better: of out-of-touch CEOs, ineffective consultants and dysfunctional boards. Alert consumers who like insider business war stories will enjoy this clear, lively book, but if you own a company or market a brand, we from getAbstract suspect you should read it twice.

Deliver a clear message-Perception is the most important!:
¡§Big Brands Big trouble¡¨ is a very interesting and comprehensive book. This book explains several types of popular mistakes with different big brand cases, how to select a board of directors and how to be a good CEO. I think this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in Marketing or Branding because you could gain a lot of insight from it. After reading this book, you will understand why some brands cannot be established well even they have spent a lot money on advertising, introducing many new products. This book impress me the most is that Jack Trout illustrated all mistakes clearly by showing how the big brands, like Levis, Burger King, AT & T and Marks and Spencer made in the past. Then you may discover that some of the existing well-known brands are actually making mistakes for their marketing strategies. Moreover, you may get surprise that some of the popular marketing strategies, like line extension, benchmarking cannot promote your product, conversely, they will hurt your company seriously. So you must read this book if you want to surpass your competitors by using appropriate marketing strategies for your company. Overall speaking, this book is easy to read and understand because Jack Trout delivered a concise and important message in the book ¡V ¡§Marketing is a battle of perception, not product¡¨

Deliver a Clear Message - Perception is the most important!:
¡§Big Brands Big trouble¡¨ is a very interesting and comprehensive book. This book have a clear organization which comprise several types of popular mistakes with different big brand cases, how to select a board of directors and how to be a good CEO. I think this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in Marketing or Branding because you could gain a lot of insight from it. After reading this book, you will understand why some brands cannot be established well even they have spent a lot money on advertising, introducing many new products. This book impress me the most is that Jack Trout illustrated all mistakes clearly by showing how the big brands, like Levis, Burger King, AT & T and Marks and Spencer made in the past. Then you may discover that some of the existing well-known brands are actually making mistakes for their marketing strategies. Moreover, you may get surprise that some of the popular marketing strategies, like line extension, benchmarking cannot promote your product, conversely, they will hurt your company seriously. So you must read this book if you want to surpass your competitors by using appropriate marketing strategies for your company. Overall speaking, this book is easy to read and understand because Jack Trout delivered a concise and important message in the book ¡V ¡§Marketing is a battle of perception, not product¡¨

"Positioning" updated:
"Big Brands" is kind of an update of "Positioning" with more modern examples, and they are fascinating. Examples like Newton vs. Palm, McDonalds vs. Burger King, & Levis vs. everybody. Of course some of those great examples from "Positioning" remain, like Xerox and Miller Brewing. If you haven't read "Positioning", I would definitely recommend doing that before diving into "Big Brands." Jack Trout makes marketing easy to understand by talking about products and situations we are all familiar with.