“I’ll tell you what I like about Austin’s work, and why it’s worth reading. He’s written an angry book about what’s not happening in the marketing world. To me, it’s time to get angry and restate what many overlook or just don’t get about building a differentiated brand.”
—Jack Trout, global marketing expert and author

“The same people who think you can ‘brand’ something are the ones who ask us to produce ‘viral’ videos. What’s with these people hijacking adjectives and verbs for dubious marketing purposes? Just as viral videos are outcomes of smart, insightful thinking, so are brands. I just hope the marketing pundits don’t brand Austin McGhie a heretic for his spot-on ideas. Wait, did I say that?”
—Tom Yorton, CEO, Second City Communications

Brand Is a Four Letter Word: Positioning and the Real Art of Marketing

If Sloan Wilson's classic The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit personifies the top-down business culture of the 1950s, individuality rules today. And businesses must embrace this evolution, McGhie suggests in this perceptive exploration of evolving marketing doctrine. With the Internet impelling unprecedented cultural change, cookie-cutter conformity ensures mediocrity; the most differentiated, strongest products come from "oddball entrepreneurs." Contrary to conventional thinking, McGhie argues that a brand is not imposed on the market but is awarded by the market; it is "a consequence, not an action." This shift in perception manifests the need for a dialectic between producer and customer, with sincerity at the core. McGhie draws on his extensive marketing background to show how brands engage customers in company culture and persuade them to participate in the corporate "sense of mission." Whether the reader accepts or condemns McGhie's contention that the model of one-way persuasion is obsolete, the heightened significance of customer word-of-mouth reaction, or its electronic counterpart, seems unassailable. The customer, not the marketer, controls the brand in the brave new world of viral marketing. And McGhie's argument that traditional marketing theories, though still adapting to new media, are not necessarily obsolete should intrigue both industry professionals and marketing neophytes.
—Publishers Weekly

"Creating a world-famous brand is easy. First, create a killer product. Next, read Brand is a Four Letter Word to get an idea of the kind of very hard (but very rewarding) work you'll need to do to really make your mark on the marketplace. There may be no shortcuts on this journey, but this book is the road map." —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind