Chris Burggraeve shares his experience of the marketing finance interface in his new book Marketing is not a black hole. (Why black hole? There are a lot of science fiction references. I must say that I appreciate that even if the rocket ship veers towards cheesy). His main point is a good one, that marketing…
The Future Is Abundance
Peter Diamandis & Steven Kotler’s book Abundance is a great read. It argues that the future is abundance. The world will be able to produce what we need to give everyone in it a decent life. The book is a valuable antidote to pessimism. The Future Is Abundance, Innovation, And Progress Whenever they see discussions…
Comparing Text Classification Methods
Marketing research, especially academic research, now assesses a lot of unstructured text data. (Unstructured data is that which does not come in neat database/spreadsheet form of rows and columns). Classifying such text is a task that computers excel at. So, how do we go about comparing text classification methods to find which one best fits…
Sage Advice On Positioning
Kim Whitler, author of Positioning for Advantage, has had a fascinating career. This has taken her through senior marketing roles at some notable companies. She is now at Darden, the University of Virginia (my MBA alma mater). Her book brought back a lot of memories. She has managed to distill the spirit of academic advice,…
Internal Measurement Of Brand Value
As regular readers will know I do a lot of work with MASB (the marketing Accountability Standards Board). Some of my colleagues at MASB wrote a paper about brand valuation. I want to highlight and reinforce their message. A key part of this is that the internal measurement of brand value is crucial to bringing…
Regulation And Business Responsibility
What can business history tell us about regulation and business responsibility? The Purpose Of Business Looking at business history gives an interesting perspective. The idea that businesses are only there for the benefit of shareholders (see here) is not the only view that exists by a long way. One set of people who had a…
Leadership, Power, And Morality
One of the things that struck me about Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Power was its amorality. Generally speaking, I agree with him but even I was left a bit uncomfortable at times. Pfeffer clearly sees power as something you gain in order to achieve things with it. Power isn’t really anything to do with morality. Leadership, power,…
Gaining And Using Power
Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Power is a classy version of a self-help book. I know self-help book sounds a bit insulting but I don’t mean it to be. The idea of giving practical advice that is informed by good research is central to what academics should be doing. There are enough complete nonsense self-help books to show…
Role Of Customer Equity
Daniel McCarthy and Fernando Pereda have a paper on the role of customer equity in corporate valuation. It is on SSRN so a working paper and yet to be formally published, see here. Still, it has been downloaded a lot. So, I think it reasonable to take a look and comment as many have already…
Using A Pie-Growing Mindset
Alex Edmans’ Grow The Piece is a useful book trying to refocus business on being beneficial for society. I have noted the key points on this before, see here. Here I’ll tackle a grab bag of points related to Edmans’ book and using a pie-growing mindset. Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Nebulous Often people like the…
