Laurie Young

Scenarios in Marketing

Laurie Young

You've chosen this book. Which probably means you're a marketer, you've heard of scenarios and you want to know what they can do for you. Can they help with everyday marketing issues like brands, channels and relationships? The answer is yes. Rooted in customer needs, scenarios bridge the gap between corporate strategy and marketing tactics. They are a weapon for perceiving the unseen and a framework for thinking the unthinkable. This book's wealth of case studies will show you how they've helped top companies like Pfizer, Nestle and Courvoisier to do just that, and its practical lessons will show how they can do exactly the same for you. Gill Ringland and Laurie Young have gathered top-flight contributors to offer the first straightforward account of scenario planning for marketers. In readable chapters they show how, by integrating scenarios into the wider marketing toolkit, you can make your organization more customer-driven and consider a wider range of possibilities than your competitors. They explore how scenarios have driven creativity in a range of consumer marketing applications – even in FMCG sectors – and define their role in distribution, channel management, brand management and customer management strategy. Finally, they show how marketing scenarios can help to promote wider corporate innovation. The rich pictures painted by scenarios have made business strategy more visionary and creative, and they're set to do the same with marketing strategy. Read this book, and make sure it's your organization holding the brush.

The Marketer's Handbook. Reassessing Marketing Techniques for Modern Business

Laurie Young

This book, written by a senior marketer with over thirty years experience of using marketing techniques and concepts, sets out to describe, contextualize and rate them. Its prime emphasis is on understanding their status so that they can be used to direct the use of shareholder funds effectively. Its conclusion is that seasoned professionals must use their judgement about when and how to use them, but they also need to understand them in depth if they are going to make well-rounded, effective investment decisions. Above all it asks: “how useful and relevant is this concept? Will it improve decision making? Does the damn thing have any credibility and does it work?” “This book combines a rigorous review of a wide range of marketing concepts with many practical examples and case studies. It can be read or dipped into both by seasoned professionals and by those just embarking on their marketing career.” Sir Paul Judge, President, Chartered Institute of Marketing “Laurie Young casts an experienced and skeptical eye on many cherished marketing concepts and techniques. He provides an antidote to the tendency to adopt them without understanding their limitations and possibilities.” Professor George Day, The Wharton School, Chairman of the American Marketing Association “Laurie Young has produced nothing less than the A-Z of marketing. He has journeyed far and wide mapping out hundreds of business, marketing and communications models to produce an extremely useful industry atlas. Certainly it will find a well-thumbed home on my bookshelf.” Hamish Pringle, Director General, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising “This book is much needed by marketing. Its value is in challenging concepts, some of which have been the accepted norm for a long time. But as this book shows, some of these may no longer be relevant and appropriate for marketers in today’s consumer environment.” Mike Johnston, CEO, Dairy Council of Northern Ireland and former Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing “Senior marketers, like those who make up the membership of the Marketing Society, hone the methods and techniques they favour as their career develops. Laurie Young clearly did that and an experienced voice shines through this critique. It is heartening to find that so many concepts have a long history of producing real value for businesses but alarming to find so many of the theorists’ favourites to be so groundless.” Hugh Burkitt, CEO, The Marketing Society