Mark Stevens - Your Marketing Sucks

Pros: Nil.
Cons: Shocking, deplorable.

My title is about as original in creative thought as this dirty, tacky little tome by Mark Stevens supposedly about marketing. I'm not a marketing guru. I did exceptionally well in it at university, but my 'real world' marketing experience is ...

Pros: Original title
Cons: Annoying use of "Extreme Marketing", no original ideas.

No original ideas, except of course the title. I guess this is worth something, after all, it persuaded me to buy the book!

The book starts off with the annoying phrase, "Extreme Marketing". Let's get one thing straight: Nothing in this book is extreme. The ideas are basic, focusing on sales and advertising. If that's what you need, then perhaps this is a good book for you.

Second, this book suffers from the ever-popular confusion between marketing and sales. This book doesn't really touch marketing as a discipline, but instead reads like a commercial for his advertising firm. He spends an entire chapter (one of the longer chapters in the book) describing how a company transformed itself using "his" principles. Guess what? The company is fictional! He made up the company, and made up the results! How is that helpful?

Overall, if you are a beginner in sales, this book may be of some help. But if you are looking for marketing tactics, strategy, or new insights, this this isn't the one.