Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing

Description:
Review: “This is not your ordinary marketing manual. With casual humor and a laid-back tone, Wipperfürth, a marketer who helps brands like Dr. Martens and Napster ‘appear like serendipitous accidents,’ advocates the ‘brand hijack,’ a process of allowing customers to shape brand meaning and drive a brand's evolution. Using case studies of products that were embraced by young consumers precisely because they lacked traditional, excessive ad campaigns, like Pabst Blue Ribbon and In-N-Out Burger, Wipperfürth shows that seemingly effortless branding is actually sustained by ‘no-marketing’ techniques. Some of these tactics include marketing first to alternative subcultures and building a brand ‘folklore’ with ‘customs, rituals, vocabulary...and experiences,’ much in the way that he claims ‘Starbucks created coffee culture.’ The book designates three types of brand hijack: the Discovery, which allows people to feel ‘in on a secret’ (à la Palm); the Commentary, by which a brand like Dr. Martens is associated with a subversive social statement; and the Mission, which ‘declares a worldview oppositional to a 'Big Brother' enemy’ (à la Apple). While the book speaks specifically to marketers, it offers a glimpse into America's consumer- and ad-driven culture, and even lay readers will be fascinated to learn about the sly techniques being utilized on them. That pair of expensive pre-ripped jeans will never look the same.” (Publisher’s Weekly)