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Author: Christopher Locke
Publisher: Perseus Publishing
Genre: Business
Pages: 256
Retail Price: $9.99
Buy on Amazon.com
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Christopher Locke is known for his online rants against traditional corporate systems, and his last book Cluetrain was a hit with marketers looking to engage, rather than target, potential consumers. While I haven't read his rants or his previous book, I did receive his new one, Gonzo Marketing, which apparently builds upon his ideas from Cluetrain, but adds more scattered filler.
Like his idol Hunter S. Thompson, Locke's writing is all over the place and self-absorbed. Uptight suits might find his prose amusing and cutting-edge, but to me it seemed like a lot of hot air. After almost 200 pages of random etymology, philosophy, and sociology in the vein of Robert Anton Wilson, but spliced with embarrassing-dad humor, he finally gets to his theory, which is that companies looking to market on the web shouldn't think about marketing. Rather, they should build personal relationships with potential consumers, but still not push their products or services, since that would still be a form of marketing (one-on-one, or personal selling). As an example, he suggests that Ford pay employees to stay home and build web sites based on their own personal interests, such as organic gardening. And instead of linking Ford to their site, Ford would link the gardening site and encourage people to visit these underwritten - but not sponsored - sites. The hope is that organic gardeners might somehow become interested in Ford's products.
While he makes some good points about consumers' repugnance of all forms of online advertising, and the overall ineffectiveness of mass communication on the web, his solution doesn't seem to hold much water or make any financial sense. Even if a company did use its resources to underwrite completely unrelated web sites to create these micro-communities and forums around unrelated fields, consumers would STILL be distrustful of the company. No matter how much Locke tries covering it up with his "zany" writing style, the fact remains that anti-marketing is still marketing, and in the end, his theory would, in practice, appear even more dubious and dishonest as traditional marketing.
However, Locke does succeed in selling himself, and while I didn't find his "hey-look-at-me-I'm-not-wearing-a-tie!" shtick very entertaining, his charisma (or penchant for quoting dorky classic rock songs) will definitely win him over with the balding, stuffy suit set. |
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Bottom Line: Unrealistic ideas for New Marketing.
Overall Rating:
Reviewer: Adam Coozer |
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