By Prasanna Singh
At the very outset, when I started to read this book, one thing was amply clear. Ambi Parameswaran, one of those rare senior admen to have embraced teaching, loves it. And right after, his students as well. This book is not an attempt to bottle and package marketing concepts, as it is an earnest effort to write a ‘key’ for students of marketing. They stand to benefit from Ambi’s vast experience of the real world and the distilled wisdom of an adman who has seen it all up close. With 11 books behind him on his life and learnings from the field, he clearly loves to share. And, he does that generously with Marketing Mixology.
The book is written in a clear style that is more about answering common questions students of marketing and even practitioners face today, be it in interviews or during negotiations.
It starts with the first line itself, when he refers to the many questions he fields nowadays, starting with “How can I get a quick refresher on marketing?”. With this book, he makes an earnest attempt to answer that question, and some more, in a precise read. His teaching experience shines through, perhaps most obviously when he refers to the TLDR crowd (too long; didn’t read) one of the many new realities of the new generation of students that he has clearly made his peace with.
Marketing Mixology, at less than 120 pages for the TLDR crowd, takes away any such excuse, while offering some invaluable insights, some of which even this jaded reviewer was delighted to discover again. Ambi’s decades in advertising shine through, in his love and belief in branding and communications, two of the four key parts of the mix he dives into here, the other two being understanding the consumer and, of course, selling and negotiation.
Advertising and marketing folks believe more strongly than most in their tools, and this reflects in the special love for brand building Ambi shows with the 40 pages devoted to every aspect of it.
In a world where marketing seems to have changed completely with quick commerce, discount wars and efficient manufacturing in the forefront, Marketing Mixology offers a super handy checklist to check if you are treating your brand right. As he himself highlights, you don’t need to be from a premier management institute or even an MBA to build a good or great brand. This book gives you a clear, short and doable starting point for the journey of any professional or entrepreneur.
The first ‘ingredient’ that Ambi tackles —understanding your consumer—is probably the one which has changed the most today. From firms that have ceded the job to their distribution chain, to firms that have gone behind online forms, the idea of running focus group discussions, personal meetings and more that Ambi pushes for will seem daunting to many today. Perhaps that explains the higher, or faster fail rate today, and reading through the section will certainly make a few entrepreneurs wonder if they could have done better with a little more investment in this area.
For the socially conscious or awkward, the chapter on negotiation is a huge plus. For a generation that seems to have an aversion to the idea of haggling, the idea that you can negotiate from any situation will be a little novel. Or the memorable line “if you can’t walk away from a deal, the deal owns you”. Selling, where your negotiation skills can truly shine, is explained using simple frameworks that have stood the test of time and performance.
On communication, Ambi voices the pain of a generation of older marketers when he asks for better writing skills, including the rather dangerous advice to students to write 700-word articles and post them on Linkedin. I loved the advice to run everything through the Gunning Fog Index, to know just how clearly you have written. You will learn a lot when you understand the Pratfall effect, a phenomenon where a highly competent individual can become a much more likeable person by making seemingly minor mistakes. Though Ambi, for all his protestations, didn’t really need to use it, I would argue, considering the universal admiration he enjoys among his peers.
So does this book cover everything that matters? Obviously not, as the field is vast, and the focus has been to provide you the most relevant insights. Ambi has been careful (and loyal to his profession) to stay away from too much mention of the role of influencers today, for instance. Even as he touches on the role of digital, yours truly believes no mention of digital is complete without a warning of the massive risk of fraud there, including for marketers chasing views and clicks from so-called performance marketing.
With Marketing Mixology, you will have no such worries, if you give it the attention it deserves. Benefit from it.
P.S: This review rated a 15 on the Gunning Fog Index, probably one reason I will never write a successful book ever.
Prasanna Singh is a co-founder, SaurEnergy & I AmRenew.
Marketing Mixology: Four Essential Ingredients for Marketing Success
Ambi Parameswaran
Westland Books
Pp 172, Rs 350
