World Famous Comics: Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
By: Seth Godin Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Portfolio Hardcover Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 256 Publication Date: December 27, 2007
Product Description: “Gotta get me some of that New Marketing. Bring me blogs, e-mail, YouTube videos, MySpace pages, Google AdWords . . . I don’t care, as long as it’s shiny and new.”
Wait. According to bestselling author Seth Godin, all these tactics are like the toppings at an ice cream parlor. If you start with ice cream, adding cherries and hot fudge and whipped cream will make it taste great. But if you start with a bowl of meatballs . . . yuck!
As traditional marketing fades away, the new tools seem irresistible. But they don’t work as well for boring brands (“meatballs”) that might still be profitable but don’t attract word of mouth, such as Cheerios, Ford trucks, Barbie dolls, or Budweiser. When Anheuser-Busch spends $40 million on an online network called BudTV, that’s a meatball sundae. It leads to no new Bud drinkers, just a bad case of indigestion.
Meatball Sundae is the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. It explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t.
The winners aren’t just annoying start-ups run by three teenagers who never had a real job. You’ll also meet older companies that have adapted brilliantly, such as Blendtec, a thirty-year-old blender maker. It now produces “Will it blend?” videos that demolish golf balls, Coke cans, iPhones, and much more. For a few hundred dollars, Blendtec reached more than ten million eager viewers on YouTube.
Godin doesn’t pretend that it’s easy to get your products, marketing messages, and internal systems in sync. But he’ll convince you that it’s worth the effort.
Thinking Through Your Decisions One thing about Seth's books is they always get me to thinking, and re-thinking. This time, I'm thinking about marketing in today's crazy upside-down new world. Every entrepreneur worth her/his salt should be thinking through their decisions about adopting new techniques, such as blogs and Twitter, and not just tag along with the crowd. Seth helps us sort it all out. For an expansion of concepts found in my own book, "The Expert's Edge," put this book on your study list too!
New Marketing vs. Old Marketing ( Do not miss it!) Hi Seth,
i have been following your blog like a year and reading your posts almost everyday. I also bought your book " Meatball Sundae" it is a great book everyone who has "gatekeepers"(who does underestimate technology and power of online marketing tools and love their dark caves) in their company should buy, read and apply, give the same examples or similar ones to their executives and you will finally win the challenge(i did it and it is working).You may easily convert them into "new marketing" lovers. i have been thinking to write you since along time but could not find time because i am reading your intelegence whenever i have time( always excuses:)).You have changed the way i look at the new marketing. Anyway soon i will order all your books from Amazon they are making everythng crystal clear and easy. I highly reccomend everybody to read them. I hope you will continue to write them.
All the Best,
Same Song -- But It's a Good One Godin continually wows me with his ability to convey the same messages in new and different -- and entertaining -- ways. I found many noteworthy ideas and thoughts in this book -- specifically, don't try to go after the hard-to-reach customers; stick with the ones you have and serve the heck out of them.
I liked the variety of examples Godin gives -- both "do this" and "don't do this." The real-life case studies drive home his points.
Anyone in business today should be considering these topics and figuring out NOT how to make New Media work for them, but how to adjust their existing business to take advantage of what New Media is.
Over-rated, generic info, no substance I've read this book and listened to Godin speak, and I can tell you buying and reading this thing is a waste of time. His points are long-winded and not terribly important. If you're in traditional media and you're still trying to convince someone that "the internet" isn't a fad, this book is for you. However, if you live in work in the modern marketing age, you'll find nothing here of value.
I high-lighted almost the entire book If you are into the Future of Marketing do yourself a favor and get this book. I read a lot of books and this is one of the best marketing books I have ever gad the pleasure to gobble up while on some airplane going from one speaking gig to another. To illustrate: I am pretty ruthless with my high-lighter in one hand, and pen in the other, and by the time I am through I can always tell which book really got me going, simply by the amount of high-lighting I have done (or not, in most cases). And my copy of Meatball Sundae was YELLOW, all the way through. Every single page a real keeper, with morsels such as "Coca Cola is no longer the most popular soft drink in the country. The most popular drink is "Other", none of the above. The mass of choices defeats the biggest hits." and "The 'operating system' for marketers is now fundamentally changing. It doesn't matter how big your market share is today. If your product and your marketing are optimized for the older model, you will be defeated by the relentless tide of the New Marketing and the products and services that are designed for it"
Plus I love his writing: easy to read, to the point, structured paragraphs, clear. So, for once, forget the feeds, the tweets, the podcasts... read a book. This book.
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