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Perhaps with the year-end, many of us have more time to think. Several friends invited me to recommend a reading list. One said, "Brother Yu, recommend some marketing books for me," and then added, "I haven't read much, so don't fool me." So today, I plan to recommend a list of books I genuinely endorse, with a serious attitude.
1. Richard Branson's Screw It, Let's Do It From a marketing enthusiast's perspective, I feel that long-term, sustained focus on a few brands and people is better than a superficial focus on a large number of cases.
The greatest benefit of reading biographies is that they combine brand with people, methodology, and practice. By this standard, the widely acclaimed Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is already well-known. Beyond that, you might start with Richard Branson's Screw It, Let's Do It or Howard Schultz's Pour Your Heart Into It. Compared to the latter, the former seems more sincere and more "self-media."
What Virgin inspires us is a brand personality that is consistent inside and out: seemingly cynical, challenging tradition, but in reality bold, meticulous, and full of entertainment spirit, committed to viewing brand value from the perspective of a 'lifelong relationship' between brand and user.
On this basis, Branson, as a successful hip-hop capitalist, still doesn't take himself too seriously, dares to "run naked," and always has a zero-based mindset, reflecting that the spiritual core advocated by his brand is "youthfulness" rather than simply "youth." "Youth" is not equal to "young people"; youth can be seen in any age group. Only a brand that perceives this mature beauty of mind can be called a truly "young" brand.
2. MINI China's Secret Realm: Urban Micro-Travel Speaking of developing a lifelong relationship with users and what "youthfulness" means, I think MINI is definitely one of the few brands that knows exactly what it wants to do. The "Lifelong Best Friend" advertisement precisely interprets this.
MINI strives to avoid the trap of advertising that "only sees the product, not the person." "NOT NORMAL" serves as an emotional bond that closely connects both ends, building an intimate sense of identity. Whether it's a watch or a car, when this emotional recognition is strong enough, and competing brands lose relevance, the competition between products is no longer on the same dimension.
MINI knows a lot about this.
If you want to delve into this approach, flipping through Secret Realm: Urban Micro-Travel will give you insights: a group of high-end car owners, each with unique skills but never mentioning them, busy taking you through towns and villages to discover lesser-known travel secrets, narrating the cultural stories and emotional origins, with subtle inner monologues appearing and disappearing...
This is not a marketing book; it's a lifestyle reader about rediscovering the city, but it hides cleverness in simplicity, implants subtly, and precisely reflects MINI's far higher understanding of "content marketing" than its peers.
3. Al Ries's Marketing Warfare "Fifty years ago, I opened an advertising agency in New York. At that time, the advertising world was influenced by three thinkers: first, Rosser Reeves; second, David Ogilvy; third, Leo Burnett. Reeves's method was called USP (Unique Selling Proposition). If Pepsi-Cola were his client, Reeves would emphasize Pepsi's taste. Ogilvy emphasized that advertising is a long-term investment in brand building; that was the era of product image. Leo Burnett brought us a creative era; he believed advertising must be different and full of creativity. In fact, they all focused on one point: the 'product.' But positioning theory does not focus on the product; it aims at the potential customer's mind."
This was the opening remark of Al Ries, known as the "father of positioning theory," during a speech in China not long ago. With this speech, the 88-year-old Ries announced his retirement, which sparked my interest in revisiting the "Positioning" series. As his core viewpoint states, a brand must occupy a unique position in the user's mind. From this opening remark, you can also see that "positioning" theory always tries to highlight its differences from other schools.
I recommend that everyone read at least one book from the "Positioning" series with a skeptical spirit. The reason I mention "skepticism" is that in the past few decades when the theory was popular worldwide, the core theme of marketing was always advertising, advertising, and advertising. Today, although advertising is still mainstream in marketing, the rise of mobile internet has brought information abundance and point-to-point communication, which has also promoted the experience economy, fan economy, community marketing, etc. Advertising is no longer the only way. However, if we return to the method of "influencing user minds," the Positioning series still has much to offer.
4. Philip Kotler's Marketing 3.0 Continuing from the "positioning" theory, if time permits, you might also read David Aaker's Brand Relevance. The thinking is consistent, but the latter focuses more on category innovation, with newer cases, language, and ideas.
If time is limited, I suggest directly picking up Philip Kotler's Marketing 3.0.
In this book, Kotler divides the evolution of marketing into three distinct eras: "Product-centric 1.0," "Consumer-oriented 2.0," and "Value-driven marketing 3.0." He emphasizes that in the 3.0 era: "Marketers no longer treat customers merely as consumers, but as complete human individuals with independent thoughts, hearts, and spirits. Today's consumers are increasingly concerned about various inner anxieties and hope the world becomes better."
In simple terms, Kotler's so-called '3.0 era marketing' is to build marketing on 'value output.' This value is not only functional value but should also include the emotional and spiritual value of the brand and service.
As he says, 'Marketing 3.0 must combine emotional marketing and human spirit marketing.'
What is "human spirit marketing"? Is there really such a trend? Talking about Apple is cliché, and New Balance's collaboration with Li Zongsheng on "To the Craftsman" is somewhat interesting, but perhaps Starbucks' "Meet me @Starbucks" is the best example.
Think about the information anxiety and mental closure that smartphones bring to young people. Starbucks' ability to create a sincere, friendly, and stylish "third space" for face-to-face communication becomes even more valuable.
5. Jin Yong's The Smiling, Proud Wanderer With the flood of information, every brand, school, and theory has its followers and critics. This is very much like the martial arts world, where sects are numerous and conflicts never cease.
Martial arts masters can spar and compare skills, or they can appreciate each other and bow in respect. But if you insist that your school is the best in the world, with no room for others or new knowledge, you can never become a grand master. So I've always felt that The Smiling, Proud Wanderer is actually about 'breadth of mind.'
Whenever I see people arguing about whether product or marketing is more important, or whether advertising or community is key, I think of the "Qi Sect" and "Sword Sect" in the Huashan School. The two sects fight to the death, yet what they hold onto is just a glimpse of the vast martial arts.
From a certain perspective, emphasizing product is like the "Qi Sect," which focuses on using internal energy to control the sword, requiring deep "internal strength" in the product; while emphasizing marketing is like the "Sword Sect," which focuses on being free and unconstrained, adapting to circumstances, and winning without moves. But from a practical standpoint, focusing only on one side can lead to going astray. You can't neglect either; "you have me, and I have you," only then can martial arts improve and cultivation deepen.
6. Bruce Lee's Artist of Life However, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer is after all a novelist's tale; whether it is credible is a matter of opinion. In this regard, Artist of Life, which condenses Bruce Lee's deep insights into "Kung Fu," is more likely to bring you real gains.
"For me, the special thing about Kung Fu is its simplicity. Kung Fu is simply the direct expression of one's emotions with minimal movement and force. Every movement has its own character, without any artificial embellishment that complicates it. The closer you get to the essence of Kung Fu, the less redundant expression there is."
From this perspective, the so-called "Jeet Kune Do" pursues neither ferocity nor beauty, but the simplest, most direct, and effective way to intercept the opponent's punch. You can understand this in Ogilvy's logic: "A good advertisement is not about creating memorable phrases but about truthfully pointing to the product." You can also compare it to Jobs's logic of Apple's "extreme simplicity."
Similarly, Kung Fu has forms, but true Kung Fu requires forgetting the forms; good marketing is also "anti-marketing." So-called technology, content, creativity, and channels are all details of "punch or kick," which should change with time, situation, and person, and should not become a burden or obstacle to the smooth transmission of brand value.
7. Ken Segall's Insanely Simple In Wu Jun's The Rise of the Waves, there is an episode where Jobs, deeply influenced by Eastern mysticism, once sought management advice from Sony's Akio Morita. Let's set that story aside for now, but just say that this "Eastern mysticism" of "great sound is silent, great form is shapeless" indeed gave rise to Jobs's pursuit of "extreme simplicity," leading him to say almost the same thing as Bruce Lee above: "Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."
What impact does pursuing "extreme simplicity" as a philosophy across product, marketing, management, and all other aspects have? This is the answer Ken Segall attempts to provide in Insanely Simple.
One major reason to recommend this book is: Segall served as creative director for BMW, IBM, NeXT, and Apple, and was an advertising madman who worked with Jobs for years. He not only witnessed Apple's successful marketing but also practiced it himself. Segall played a key role in Apple's revival, helping create the crucial "Think Different" campaign and participating in the naming of the iMac, which laid the groundwork for the "i" series product boom.
Segall has deep ties with Apple. His mentor and former boss, Steve Hayden (former vice chairman of Ogilvy and creator of the 1984 Super Bowl Apple ad), also wrote a foreword for this book with a strong Ogilvy style: "Ken Segall has managed to capture lightning in a bottle..."
8. Kenya Hara's Designing Design If there is any work today that dares to adhere to the "right mindfulness" of returning to the essence of people, things, and objects, using confident life wisdom and elegant, penetrating design to care for humanity, it must be Kenya Hara's Designing Design.
Is this a marketing book?
It doesn't seem so, but its inner subtlety is connected to marketing thought, mutually confirming, with an indescribable beauty.
Although it's indescribable, we can still try to concretize the value of this book, which may include:
1. "Understanding something is not about defining it or describing it, but rather taking this thing we think we know, making it unknown, and arousing our freshness about its truth." — Ex-formation: the design principle of turning the known into the unknown.
On this basis, "Creativity is discovering a question that has never been asked." (Naoto Fukasawa designed the wall-mounted CD player for Muji that, when you pull the string, immediately brings a "spring breeze.")
Alongside software and hardware, there is "senseware" — "anything familiar that stimulates our sensory perception" (like the old-fashioned resort in Bali with pebble paths that delights our soles and thus delights our souls).
What is design? — "Design is not a subordinate of media; design explores the essence of media."
9. David Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man Classics are like old songs; they always remain fresh.
If the last slot isn't for my repeatedly recommended The Business Show, it must be reserved for this book by David Ogilvy.
Confessions of an Advertising Man was written in the last century. As a pioneering thinker in advertising, it's hard to imagine that Ogilvy only started Ogilvy & Mather at the "advanced age" of 38, after nearly half a lifetime of sifting through gold. He then gained worldwide fame. Whenever I think of this, I also think of Jobs, who took the helm again at 42. It seems that only when men have been tempered by the harsh realities of life, with all the glitz removed and no trace of artifice, do their words gain the power to strike directly at the heart.
Source: Yu Jian
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