The 30 Day MBA in Marketing: Your Fast Track Guide to Business Success

Coca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands–they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America’s most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create “identity myths” that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can’t be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty–and outlines a distinctive set of “cultural branding” principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School.

A rigorous two-year study of the top 800 value-creating public companies found that growth generated internally through a commitment to customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and profitability resulted in consistent employee retention, stock value improvements, and better returns on investment.

In The Road to Organic Growth, Edward Hess shares the full results of his breakthrough study, providing fresh, and often-surprising perspectives on what it really takes to foster organic growth. Using instructive examples from leading companies such as SYSCO, Best Buy,Tiffany & Company, Outback Steakhouse, and Stryker Corporation, Hess reveals the strategies these trailblazers used to achieve long-term growth from within.

Drawing upon original research, interviews, and in-depth corporate studies, Hess identifies the six keys to achieving organic growth and-most important-explains how to seamlessly and consistently incorporate them into a formula for sustainability and competitive advantage to

• Develop a simple, easy-to-understand business model and growth strategy
• Be entrepreneurial at the point of customer contact
• Measure everything-from finances to operations to behaviors
• Build an engaged, loyal, and multi-talented people pipeline
• Find humble, internally-focused operators to lead your company
• Be an execution and technology champion

  The Road to Organic Growth proves that you can build a sustainable, successful business without the expense of acquisitions, financial manipulations, or devaluing your employees. By exceeding customer expectations, building an employee-centric organization, and focusing intensely on measurement and performance, your company will achieve consistent, solid growth from within.

Having trouble closing your deals? Hitting a frustrating plateau with your sales numbers? Feel that upselling is a lost cause? Let sales guru Stephan Schiffman drive your sales pitches up a notch with his tried-and-true techniques – and get results immediately! Stephan Schiffman’s Sales Essentials includes time-tested tips on: Mastering the cold call Using email as a selling tool Raising the stakes to “up” your next buy Closing the deal – every time! Plus, you’ll also find 50 surefire questions to ask to make deal after deal, year after year. Packed with insider information you need to beat the competition, you can’t afford not to read Stephan Schiffman’s Sales Essentials!

′Küng’s book stands out for its focus on concepts, drivers, and dynamics. Its scope and learning are brilliant and dazzling. This updated edition will be a source of insight for students and a tool for industry veterans who seek the perspective of academia.′
– Eli Noam, Columbia Business School

′A landmark contribution to scholarship, Küng’s excellent book provides an empirically rich and analytically sharp-sighted guide to contemporary organizational strategies in a complex and dynamic media environment.′
– Gillian Doyle, University of Glasgow

′In the age of relentless technological disruption, unlimited distribution and non-professionalization, media firms are more dependent than ever on strategic management. Küng articulates the dimensions of media industries to account for an ever-increasing array of challenges and strategies.′
– David Craig, University of Southern California

In this Second Edition of a book many found invaluable for research and teaching, including myself, Küng accomplishes a challenging task: to preserve all the best qualities of the First Edition while both extending the scope and deepening understandings about strategic management theory in application to media industries.′
– Gregory Ferrell Lowe, University of Tampere

With the media industries facing unprecedented change and challenge from top to bottom, it has never been more vital to understand the elements of strategy and how they apply to media organizations.

This new edition:

• Shows innovation, disruption and strategic adaptation in action, with a stronger focus on a case-based approach
• Takes readers deep into case studies on BuzzFeed, The Guardian, Netflix, the New York Times and the BBC
• Explains strategic theory and concepts with insight and clarity
• Shows how to understand change and decision-making within media organizations.

This is the essential guide to change and management in the media industries – ideal for students of media studies, media economics and media management.