January 4th, 2010

Max Lenderman, who just recently moved to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, wrote what I consider to be the best book on experiential marketing, Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World. He’s added a second book to his resume, Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business, which I can also heartily recommend.

In it, Lenderman recounts his trips through the “BRIC” countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, constantly providing lessons on how marketing should be done today, even for us in the fully developed world. From Brazil — where all outdoor advertising has been banned in São Paulo — we learn that “in order to authentically and effectively establish this relationship between a brand and a consumer, the consumer must be convinced that the brand or company in question is a force of good. By doing good, brands look good. And if they look good — even if it is perception more than reality — their consumers will notice” (p. 180).

From Russia we learn how “In emerging markets, people are looking for aspirations, cachet, affluence, and lifestyle” (p. 50). From India we learn how “Bollywood and the mobile revolution gripping India” — and here Lenderman refers not to the mobile phone but mobile theatrical experiences companies use to sell their offerings all over the huge, populous country — “present remarkable opportunities for brands to assimilate and appropriate storytelling and technology in order to produce unrivaled brand experiences” (p. 87).

And from China, that land of fakes, we learn — surprise! surprise! — that “in a consumer society that deeply values honesty, transparency, social networking, and personal relationships, the practice of inauthentic marketing and fake branding negatively influences the way consumers view the brands. . . . Simply put, if brands are no longer perceived as authentic, their marketing will no longer be welcomed by the discerning and emergent consumer” (p. 142).

All brand managers — and anyone else who (like us) are looking to overthrow the old ways of marketing by turning to authenticity-rendering placemaking — should read this book and apply these lessons, plus much more Lenderman shows us about the brand new world we live in today. The book fulfills the promise laid out in his introduction in a startling paragraph, containing a proposition to which all marketers should ascend:

“[M]arketers must become bolder and more inclusive. Our insights must be more empathetic; our tactics should be more innovative. Brands will need to unequivocally become virtuous forces in the marketplace. Those that can’t offer up a clear and meaningful benefit to the marketplace will be rejected. Marketing in the future will be personal. I don’t mean targeted. I don’t mean customized. I mean personal. Marketing will be something that is shared between people rather than directed at them. And it will be a force for the global good, an industry that no longer annoys, but inspires.”