Outsmart The MBA Clones

The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing, and Branding

Dan Herman

Publisher: Paramount Marketing Publishing, 2008 , 262 pages

ISBN: 978-0-9786602-8-4

Synopsis:

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How can you be immensely successful for many years, and yet not be imitated by competitors? Impossible, you say. Not so. Virgin Atlantic, the Body Shop, Apple Computers, and Birkenstock they all achieved this status, and there are ample additional examples. They cracked the secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated and are adored by customers who think that they are incomparable. Dr. Dan Herman calls it an Unfair Competitive Advantage. It's not at all unethical. Everyone has a fair chance of attaining such an advantage including, every reader of this book.

There is a secret to successful differentiation that is not imitated. It is a psychological secret that has to do with the way your competitors think. Most marketers today are MBA graduates who tend to think and operate in typical and predictable ways - you might call them MBA Clones. You can take advantage of their biases and outsmart them. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Dan Herman not only reveals the secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated but also supplies you with a comprehensive set of practical rules and tools that will enable you to make an unfair advantage your reality.

Dr. Herman, a competitive strategy consultant with vast global experience, a seasoned CMO in a large corporation, a branding professional and a businessman, does not tell you to 'think out of the box' as so many do he provides you with a new and comprehensive toolbox for success.

You'll learn:

• The secret of successful differentiation that is not imitated
• How to scan methodically for both strategic and tactical opportunities for success
• How to integrate a business model, a competitive strategy and a brand concept to create a unitary 'unique success formula' for your company
• How to create marketing hits short meteoric successes
• How to use electrifying marketing, just-on-desire branding and the brand drama approach to build emotionally powerful brands, and many other useful additions to your profit-generating arsenal of concepts and methods.

Using a plethora of examples from top businesses around the world, Dr. Herman offers a business oriented-point of view that is fresh and different, and even humorous at times. Even though this book will turn your thinking inside out, everything in it is practical and easily applicable in any kind of business.

Table of Contents:

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• Part 1
  An alternative understanding of competitive strategy, competitive advantage, and how to achieve it
  1. Introduction: MBA Clones Are All Around You
  2. What is an Unfair Advantage?
  3. Some Surprising Insights about Strategy
  4. The Three Myths about Competitive Advantage
  5. The Great Secret of Differentiation that No One Imitates
  6. Strategy Development: How Will You Knoiw What's Next?
• Part 2
  The O-Scan: Identifying opportunities for success and devising the strategies to maximize them
  7. An Overview of O-Scan: How to Identify, Invent, and Maximize Opportunities
  8. Some O-Scan Methods: Obtaining Insights about Consumers and Their Future Desires
  9. Some More O-Scan Methods: Identifying Opportunities Using the Consomption Process Analysis
  10. Still More O-Scan Methods: Identifying Opportunities through Self-Analysis and Competitive Analysis
• Part 3
  More tools for managers compelled to "think outside the box": innovative approaches and methods in marketing and branding
  11. Inside Information from the Consumer's Mind
  12. The Real Reasons for Brand Success
  13. How Do You Create a Brand that is More than the Product?
  14. Satisfying Marketing Vs. Electrifying Marketing
  15. How Are Marketing Hits Developed?
  16. How to Drive Consumers Crazy for Your Brand