I’m passionate about the extraordinary world of the ordinary consumer. Organizations are much more likely to succeed when they are, too. I’m a marketing professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, U.S.A. I’m also a marketing consultant, an author (my Consumer Behavior textbook is the market leader globally), and a keynote speaker.
Consumers are changing, but the marketing categories used to identify them have not. Engage with this new generation of consumers who increasingly take for granted that products and advertising will blend their multiple brand identities rather than market to them as a specific subculture.
Male or female, work or play, online or offline. These and other market categories are no longer relevant as modern consumers defy traditional boundaries and identify as members of multiple subcultures. The New Chameleons reveals how to engage with this new generation of consumers who change their social identities as often as chameleons change colors.
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The author is also a social psychologist (we were trained in the same Ph.D. program), and this book is one of the seminal works in the field. Bob Cialdini systematically applies well-worn rules of social attraction and power derived from voluminous research on attitudes and persuasion to marketing challenges. Many practitioners became aware of the complex dynamics of persuasion as a result of this book.
Paco’s Why We Buy has been the gold standard for shopper marketers for many years. This book (and its more recently updated new edition) opens our eyes to the seemingly “random” behaviors of store shoppers. This was one of the first attempts to systematically study and optimize the use of retail space – as such it was a precursor to the many books on the customer experience we see today.
Erving Goffman’s work on impression management had a huge influence on me, beginning in my student days when I started to become fascinated by everyday interactions. The deliberate (and often convoluted) process of trying to control the impressions others form of us is integral to our modern-day understanding of brands and the social meanings they hold.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed an explosion of interest in the subtle, yet powerful environmental cues that regular our behaviors. This focus on behavioral economics is a bit of a concession by economists that consumer behavior is not necessarily governed by the “rational” laws of homo economicus, where choices are calmly and rationally made with full knowledge of all the relevant parameters. This holds huge ramifications for marketing applications, but also for public policy issues (e.g., persuading employees to save more for retirement, promote organ donation, etc.
Today, everyone’s buzzing about “The Metaverse” and the steady integration of our offline and online lives. Stephenson’s novel introduced this concept, and it really impacted my thinking and research on virtual social identity as consumers spend more and more of their lives enmeshed in virtual worlds rather than in the physical space. A very prescient vision of the future of marketing and consumer behavior.
5,888 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about persuasion, decision making, and social psychology.
We think you will like The Four Agreements, Good Strategy Bad Strategy, and Social Intelligence if you like this list.
From Julie's list on women growing in recovery.
Like every book on my list, I did a lot of underlining and scribbling in the margins when I read The Four Agreements. For me, there are fundamental truths in this small, simple book. “Find your voice to ask for what you want. Everybody has the right to tell you no or yes, but you always have the right to ask” (p. 72). “Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be” (p. 19). “You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you” (p. 60). It can be challenging to “find your voice” as a woman, especially in recovery from addiction when guilt, shame, and relationship challenges can complicate things even further. I found the insights in this book easy to grasp and to use.
From Ngan's list on that get you thinking.
There are thousands of strategy books, from personal success strategies to business strategies to financial strategy. This is one of the best I’ve read so far. It’s insightful, colorful, to the point, and paints a very vivid picture of what it takes to develop a good strategy, a concept that is not too easy to define. Precisely what is strategy? This book demonstrates that it is the skilled approach and the ability to move resources and people to achieve an objective. While the book uses many business examples, I think the lessons can be deducted for any industry if you have a desire to get ahead.
From Dianna's list on leadership communication.
For more than three decades now, we’ve seen corporations, nonprofits, and governments go under because one or more of their executive leaders proved emotionally unstable. Those leaders were either narcissistic, paranoid, bipolar, impulsive, or immature (temper tantrums, poor coping skills, crying, withdrawing, pouting).
Without self-awareness—and the awareness to identify emotional instability in others—leaders cannot hope to connect genuinely and build personal influence and loyalty among colleagues and staffers.
I love this book because of its research and real-life case studies. With almost every chapter, you’ll say, “Oh, I know that guy or gal!”
Better: You learn how to cope with them (or maybe more importantly, you learn if it will be impossible to ever cope with them).
