Digital Musings

Licensed to Manage: Can't believe it...

"If management was a licensed profession on a par with law or medicine, there might be fewer opportunities for corporate bad guys, argue HBS professors Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria , and research associate Daniel Penrice."

This statement is drawn from a book published by MIT Press. An executive summary of the full chapter from which the statement is drawn is here.

I can't believe my eyes!!! How can you seriously believe that a professional license will improve things in the corporate arena? Either the authors never tell lawyers' jokes, never read about accounting and medical scandals or I miss something?

By the way Professor Khurana runs a blog.

The Business Gurus Connection

Are you an aspiring business guru? Are you one who wants to stay in the game? Here is a piece of advice drawn from Martin Lindstrom's latest book launch (BRAND Sense, see my previous post on the book).

Here is what Tom Peters, business guru among the business gurus, has to say to endorse Lindstrom's book:

"BRANDsense is a wonderful book, an original to be sure. More important, it is a necessary book! The table has been run on traditional branding practices - and the race is on to re-imagine marketing and branding.

Martin Lindstrom provides us with the Nikes we need to begin the re-imaging sprint."

Why is Tom Peters putting so much emphasis on re-imagination? The answer is here !

See the point: Business gurus behave much in the same way as eleventh century Maghribi traders (mediterranenan trade). Trade at the time was not easy and begged the question of reputation: How can you (learn to) trust somebody with whom you'd like to trade with but whom you don't know? As shown by Stanford University professor of economics, Avner Greif, Maghribi traders formed a coalition along the following basic rules:

• Hire only another Maghribi merchant as an agent,
• Spread reputation of an agent who cheated to the Mahgribi coalition,
• Refrain from hiring a Mahgribi merchant who has acquired such a reputation.

Other things being equal business gurus do the same: They use the system of co-endorsements to strengthen the coalition and, in the course of doing so, promote their respective buzzwords: Re-imagine, re-engineering, EVA etc... And guess what they usually share the same "impresario"!

Brand Sense: Beware Brands Are After Your Five Senses!

I just received the latest newsletter from Brand Guru Martin Lindstrom. Very Interesting indeed! Lindstrom is indoubtedly talented to create a lot of hype around his "brand" new book: BRAND Sense.

Here is his starting pitch to make you "salivate" of course:

"BRAND sense is about how our five senses interact with brands. It demonstrates how it's entirely possible to go beyond sight and sound to fully integrate smell, touch and taste. The effects are nothing short of mindblowing. Based on the world's largest study ever conducted on our five senses carried out by prominent research institute, Millward Brown, we are now able to prove that multi-sensory branding works."

Lindstrom goes on with the usual pinch of business romance:

" The answer came to me on a Tokyo street in the spring of 1999. A lady brushed by me and her perfume took me back to my childhood. It was extraordinary. For a moment the rush-hour crowds, the traffic and the high-rise buildings ceased to exist. I was instantly transported to the Danish countryside, smelling the same perfume that a friend of mine always wore. It stood to reason that if brands contained a scent, they could be equally powerful.
This epiphany triggered what was to become the world's largest study on our five senses in relationship to branding. With help and support from the international research institute Millward Brown, a team of 600 researchers undertook an intensive 18-month study across 13 countries. The findings have been nothing short of mind-blowing. What was revealed was that the second-most important sense that connects us emotionally, is in fact smell.

Surprising - if so read this: Two identical pairs of Nike running shoes were placed in two separate, but identical, rooms. One room was infused with a mixed floral scent. The other wasn't. Test subjects inspected the shoes in each room, and then answered a questionnaire. Overwhelmingly, by a margin of 84 percent, consumers preferred the shoes displayed in the fragrant room. Additionally, the consumers estimated the value of the "scented" shoes was, on average, $10.33 higher than the pair in the unscented room."

Well, Lindstrom has a genuine gift to tell stories even if, when you think of it twice; a lot is "déjà vu"! But again, the point is that he is able to make a "whole" out of moving parts.

I wonder what Naomi Klein (No Logo) has to say about all this. Sounds like "Logo" is taking it one step beyond. Never mind! What's true is that impaired people (blind, deaf) may find it useful to now be able to recognize brands which they could not before.

Will be fun too to see how marketing professors are going to accomodate this new brand dimension into their teaching.

As far as I am concerned, I have already started: Get your nose close enough to your PC screen and you'll get to experience the very first scented blog!

Does not work? Call Typepad support!

More on Martin Lindstrom in Cyberlibris:

BRANDchild: Insights Into the Minds of Today's Global Kids, Martin Lindstrom, Kogan Page, 2003

(see also Cyberlibris Newswatch).