Top >> Book_Reviews BOOK REVIEW: Steal These Ideas! Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star By Steve Cone, Bloomberg Press, New York, Sept 2005. Steve Cone has 30 years experience working at and with many notable companies, including American Express and Apple. He is currently managing director and head of advertising and brand management at Citigroup Global Wealth Management. It’s only a compact book - just 188 pages.  But it has had some good reviews. “In less than 200 pages, Mr Cone provides a crash course on the art and science of marketing.  He imagines his audience as aspiring marketing stars, but even those of us who are not can benefit from his ‘secrets’. His book is a busy executive’s dream: well organised, easy to read and packed with lucid opinions and lively examples.  It includes bullet-point summaries and pithy checklists. He doesn’t merely offer advice but unabashedly tells us what to do. He gets away with this because of his advertising pedigree than because of the logic of the case he makes.” Richard F Zannino, COO of Dow Jones & Co. “Peppered with practical lessons and engaging anecdotes.  All in all, there are plenty of ideas here worth stealing,” The Wall Street Journal “In a clear and succinct fashion, Cone states what people need to do to have a great marketing campaign.” Q’Dwyer’s PR Services “Practical advice for marketers of any size business and insights that can be used every single day,” Harvard Business School Club of New York “It does more than provide tips.  It also tells what’s wrong with marketing today.” Chief Marketer Included in the book is a review of what Cone regards as the great marketing campaigns of the past. He also gives his opinion of what people need to do today to create marketing campaigns. Among the principles Cone adheres to is that simply stated the job of the marketer is to excite potential buyers and get them to pay attention to the messages.  He believes marketers are increasingly failing in creating excitement.  And he claims that they are doing an even worse job in creating a compelling call to action. He is also a strong advocate of every company having a brief ‘unique selling proposition’ - a brief mission statement or tag line that simply explains what the proposition is. Two of his favourites are:  FedEx - “When it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight” and BMW - “The Ultimate Driving Machine”. “Steal These Ideas! Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star” is available in Australia from Borders - www.borders.com.au

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