Why does American business seem to sputter along where it ought to thrive? What is the source of the current plague of downsizing, disappearing companies, dot-com crashes, and here-today-gone-tomorrow advertising campaigns? Why do more products flop than ever before? Marketing experts Kevin J. Clancy and Peter C. Krieg have the answers.
In Counterintuitive Marketing, Clancy and Krieg trace the high rate of business failure back to bad marketing strategy, and the even worse implementation of that strategy. Excess testosterone, they argue, compels senior managers to make decisions intuitively, instinctively, quickly, and, unfortunately, disastrously.

In this informative and enlightening book, Clancy and Krieg confront these "over-and-over-again" marketers, who don't have time to do it right the first time, but endless time and a company bankroll to do it wrong over and over again. The authors draw from their decades of consumer and business-to-business marketing experience to describe the intuitive decision-making practices that permeate business today, and demonstrate how these practices lead to disappointing performance.

Chapter by chapter, Counterintuitive Marketing contrasts how marketing decisions are made today with how they should be made. The authors give equal treatment to targeting, positioning, product development, pricing, customer service, e-commerce, marketing planning, implementation, and more as they present counterintuitive ideas for building and introducing blockbuster marketing programs.

Readers will discover in this iconoclastic treasure chest hundreds of penetrating insights that have enabled the authors' firm, Copernicus, to transform companies and become a "brand guardian" to the Fortune 500 and emerging businesses around the world. The tools to create exceptional marketing programs really do exist, and they are all here in Counterintuitive Marketing, the ultimate practical guide for any company of any size.

ContentsPrefaceSECTION IRevolutionaries, Pioneers, and Cowboys:How Testosterone Drives American Business1 Strategic Plan Your Way to Nowhere2 Driving Growth: The Little Engine That Could3 Testosterone Decision-making: The Manly Way to Screw Up4 Warning: Commonsensical Research Can Be Dangerous to Your CareerSECTION IICounterintuitive Thinking BehindGreat Marketing Strategies5 Stunted Brands: Too Much Juice, Too Little Equity6 Marketing Visionaries: Seeing What Is Not There7 Guess Again: Intuitively Appealing Targets Are Rarely the Most Profitable8 Positioning:...And That Would Mean What?9 Sleeper and Subliminal Effects Don't Increase Sales10 Direct Marketers Need More Than Just Better Lists11 Three Scoops for a Quarter Is Two Too Many12 Give All Your Customers a New Car13 Raise Your Prices: Uncommon Approaches That Make Sense14 E-commerce Rules Are the Same as T-commerce RulesSECTION IIIImplementing CounterintuitiveMarketing Programs15 Prayers and Divine Intervention: No Marketing Miracles to Date16 Testing in Cyberspace Is Better Than Testing in the World17 Good Implementation May Be More Important Than a Great Strategy18 You Can't Measure Success Without a Score Card19 Always Time to Do It Over; Never Time to Do It RightAppendixAcknowledgmentsIndexAbout the Authors and Their Company