Book Review: CEO Factory


CEO Factory by Sudhir Sitapati, Executive Director at HUL, provides sharp insights into building bands laced with numerous HUL anecdotes and remarkable management lessons. My key takeaways:

Marketing is not about tom-tomming the product a company offers. It is not a creative role. It starts with understanding what a consumer wants, mobilizing the rest of the company into fulfilling the needs of the consumer, and then letting people know about it in the most efficient way. As a marketer/management professional, the most important thing is defining the problem correctly.



Brands are shorthands that consumers use. These are trust-marks that have few specific and same associations for many consumers. Quality is a necessary but insufficient condition for a good brand.
Start with broad segments and narrow it down only when there is compelling evidence. Holds true for most brands. Better positioned brands are better remembered. Ask 100 people about a brand, and if most of them have the same associations, the brand has got its positioning right.

The number of people that know about the brand is a function of media spends. Never have prejudice about any specific media.  Choose the media mix that helps you reach your marketing goals( reach, leads etc) in the most cost effective way.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone in marketing, aspiring to be a marketer, or even running a business. In today’s India, found it much more practical than even a Kotler.

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