Welcome to the age of the retailer. With annual revenues of $60 billion, Procter & Gamble is the largest brand manufacturer in the world, yet its proceeds are dwarfed by Wal-Mart’s $285 billion in annual revenue. Brands no longer control the market—they are at the mercy of retailers. Retailization is a call for brand managers to radically reinvent how they reach their customers. It provides brand managers revitalizing techniques that will redefine the way they think about and use marketing. Now in its third printing, Retailization has been translated into Japanese, Danish, Russian, and Chinese.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 4 reviews)

Lots of fluff, but also some interesting stuff

The term "retailization" means "optimizing sale(s) by connecting brands to shoppers through the power of retail thinking." Two problems. First, the authors made me read 54 pages before they got to defining the first important "word" presented. This was really annoying. Second, retailization is really just about doing business well by considering the distribution channels and the end user. In other words, I observed a lot of details that made a tortuous maze to the first important big idea. And the big idea was actually something good but not as novel as the marketing people would have liked for me to think.

Having said that, I have to admit that there are some interesting ideas in here. For example, "behind every great brand is an even greater product." Another example is the way they structured sales communications into tryvertising, burzz, subculturizing and communitizing. In addition, the authors have brought in countless examples to clarify often otherwise abstract ideas and references to solidify their claims.

The structure of the book is okay. They pose the "squeeze" problem -- pressures from four groups in the economy. Then they propose the 7-step approach. Adjust the distribution channel, assess your competitors, understand the end user, define the unique selling proposition, do some retail impacting, improve sales communications, and gear the organization towards this effort. Personally, I think that retail impacting would be worth looking at a second time. At the end I felt that the "squeeze" problem section was unnecessarily long, because the steps here should be taken regardless of whether the "squeeze" problem exists or not. I was somewhat annoyed with the roundabout manner -- they give you some word like "retailization" and then they make you go through fluff before they give you what it means. The upside of this is that it makes you think that you're covering a lot of material by flipping through a lot of fluff. The downside is that it annoys readers that might end up writing reviews that manifest this annoyance. Had the authors been more upfront about it (i.e. presented more structure before going on and on about squeezing), then all the details they had presented might have been "great supporting arguments for the need for retailization." On the other hand, for them the payoff is when you click on that "Add to Cart" button -- the "moment of truth" (if you have one-click turned on) if you will. From a marketing perspective, the convoluted 53-page introduction might be the optimized solution. In other words, this book might be an example of how to implement their ideas. They are walking the walk.

To implement the ideas presented is difficult. Part of the reason is that, while ideas are presented and examples are given, the gap from the ideas to the examples is too large to be crossed by yourself. However, this book might be a good primer if you and/or your organization are going to hire one or more of these people as consultants. Just skip/skim the first 53 pages of entertainment.

In short, this is a decent product with a catchy brand. If you're only going to read one book this year, this is probably not the one. If you're going to read several books this year, then consider this as one of the candidates.

October 25, 2008

Energetic analysis of how to go retail

Every great political movement, religion and scientific transformation begins with a revolution. "Retailization" may well be that revolution in worldwide marketing. Of course, from a historical perspective, it is simply a new wrinkle in the 100-year-old phenomenon of the consumer society - but a big one. Lars Thomassen, Keith Lincoln and Anthony Aconis advocate, "putting retail at the center of your business." Brand owners have been trying to do this for decades, but they have ranged from successful innovators to laggards who died or got swallowed by conglomerates or competitors. The authors have re-examined today's conditions in the light of the International Retailization Study 2005, "the largest global study every conducted" about selling branded merchandise, a two-year effort by media pollsters A.C. Neilsen and the BBDO Europe advertising agency. The authors alert any remaining brand-marketing optimists to the new level of competition and offer some concrete strategies. getAbstract recommends this clarion call about the retail revolt.
May 06, 2008

Timely

The authors are correct in stating that retailers are rulers of all marketing. They do not mention, however, the ultimate retailer/brand: Victoria's Secret.
June 25, 2007

A Wonderful Read

An insightful, well thought out and well crafted book on the impact of the big box retail revolution. A must read for brand managers. An easy read as well.
February 14, 2007

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