D. Murali

Chennai: We can keep talking about brands and how they work till the cows come home, but this one line from Jonathan Salem Baskin can hit you like a tonne of bull waste: ‘Branding doesn’t work anymore.’ In all likelihood we may have to be sitting back and watching consumers produce ads and then sell to themselves, he foresees.

Maybe it isn’t enough to deliberate on how to brand, but rather if it’s reasonable to expect to brand at all, wonders Baskin in ‘Branding Only Works On Cattle’ (www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com). “Further, if there’s a different way to conceive of brands, are there better, different ways to deliver them?”

The author frets that most branding amounts to getting consumers’ attention, and usually involves something funny, obnoxious, weird, stupid, overtly or implicitly sexual, or insanely abstract.

He argues that branding is based on an outdated and invalid desire to manipulate and control consumers’ unconscious. “It looks good and feels good to the people who produce it, but it has little to no effect on consumer behaviour… Companies do it mostly out of habit and hope, and most consumers endure it out of routine and indulgence.”

Compelling presentation.

Survival tips for frontline staff

How to deal with nasty customers, demanding bosses and annoying co-workers? Here’s help from Roberta Cava’s ‘Dealing with Difficult People’ (www.jaicobooks.com).

“Companies usually forbid their employees to retaliate when faced with client’s negative behaviour. The result is often frustrated, stressed-out employees,” she writes, in a chapter on dealing with difficult clients.

Cava advises frontline employees to remind themselves that angry clients probably have an unmet need. “Use empathy – put yourself in their shoes. Say such things as, ‘I don’t blame you for being upset. I’d feel that way too if that had happened to me.’ Listen carefully, maintaining eye contact, nodding your head, etc.”

What should you do when a client is condescending or rude, treating you like dirt? Turn off your defence mechanism, the author counsels. “Realise that you are in control of the situation.”

She also suggests that you ask them the show-stopping question, ‘What do you want me to do to solve this problem?’ This often stops them long enough to clarify what they really want from you, Cava adds.

Recommended read.

Deliriously hilarious

The ‘pitch’ is a process, during which an ad agency approaches a client with the intention of acquiring his business, usually marked by ‘environmentally friendly activities’ like recycling research, strategy, and creative, defines Vinay Kanchan in ‘The Madness Starts at 9: Life and times in an ad agency’ (www.cinnamonteal.in).

“A pitch is a very secretive thing… At times we don’t even tell the creative what brand the work is being done for,” he says through a character in the deliriously hilarious book.

One of the most important decisions is about the number of slides needed for the pitch presentation. “127,” says Vikas. “Because 127 totals 10, which means 1, and that’s a winning number… it’s all scientific. In fact, we have never lost a pitch when the slide count is 127.”

An elementary accounting principle comes to life in a chapter titled, ‘Debit the creator, credit the poacher.’ Many individuals can attribute their entire career success and tremendous economic well-being to their studious adherence to this fundamental law, avers the author. “Be wary of who you tell what – because sometimes words contain the most sought-after treasures of thought.”

Unputdownable.

BookPeek.blogspot.com