Relevance
Making Stuff That Matters
By: Tim Manners
Published: Sept 18, 2008
ISBN: 9781591842200
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Publisher: Portfolio
An epidemic of irrelevance has brought once proud companies to their knees, writes author Tim Manners in his timely and thought provoking book Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters. The author's solution to the malaise of irrelevance is a return to a marketing focus on solving problems and helping people live happier lives.
Tim Manners understands the timeless approach of being relevant to the needs of the consumer is also the most effective marketing technique. Many of the fad marketing concepts that have appeared in recent years have done more harm than good. For the author, marketing to people as people, instead of demographic profiles, is essential to understanding relevance. Marketers who place people in boxes do a disservice to their customers as well as to their products. People want to be understood as individuals, and their problems and needs addressed with respect.
Tim Manners (photo left) understands that companies investing in advertising, rather than creating products and services that meet real world needs, are seeking a quick fix. The author considers pressure on companies, from Wall Street investors to produce stronger quarterly numbers, to be one of the reasons for spending on advertising. Because product development is more long term, the rapidly becoming irrelevant advertising industry is looked upon as a quick fix solution. Instead of wasteful spending on advertising, Tim Manners considers creating more relevant products and services will take care of the marketing problems all by itself.
For me, the power of the book is its direct approach to marketing through creating and developing products and services that are relevant to the customer. Serving the needs of the customers, and solving their problems in ways that make their lives easier and happier, works for many companies. The book contains many real world examples of relevant products and services that are profitable. The many interviews with successful marketers, as they discuss the power of relevance in the marketplace are crucial to understanding the book. Instead of viewing people as mere demographic statistics, relevance places people back into the forefront of marketing.
I highly recommend Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters by Tim Manners, to anyone seeking to discover the relevance within their own brands. Business people who are serious about creating products and services that matter to real people, and marketing them effectively, must understand the vital importance of relevance.
Read Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters by Tim Manners, and start creating products and services that matter, and discover marketing to people rather than profile groups. Like the case studies described in the book, the marketing success of a company that cares about relevance, will be phenomenal.
