4 marketing lessons to learn from physics, a really awesome thing to observe while doing a parallel between these two. Of course, you still need plenty of imagination and creativity mixed in the pot, to actually spot the common grounds. This fascinating creative exercise is performed by Dan Cobley in his 7-minute speech at TED. Playing with these two, he soon unveils 4 rules that physics and marketing share in common:

#1 Newton’s Law – Force=Mass x Acceleration

The bigger the mass of a certain object, the more force is needed in order to change its course.

The same can be applied to brands: the more massive/complex a brand is, the more baggage it carries, the more effort is needed to influence its course in the market (think of positioning, advertising etc.)

#2 Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

It’s impossible to measure precisely the state (position, momentum) of a particle, because the act of measuring it, by definition, changes it. The act of observation changes it.

It’s the same with marketing: the act of observing consumers changes their behavior, they get biased from the research. So, it’s safer to measure what consumers actually do instead what they say they do or intend to do.

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There are many times in one’s professional life when things just get stuck. And we find ourselves bouncing our head against the wall looking for solutions. Being so emerged in our daily operations we can’t seem to find the answer to that customer requirement, to that marketing message or to that engineering problem.

And in so many cases, experience has proven to me, it only takes making a few steps backwards. Going out of that cul-de-sac. Taking some away time. Filling your mind with anything but the problem at hand. It can be a matter of couple of hours or couple of days. Or, in the case of disrupting or rejuvenating your career, couple of months. It’s often in these moments when the obvious reveals itself, when we see things differently and we are able to analyze things from a different perspective which was hiding itself from us in the first place.

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Here’s a brilliant insight worth sharing; found it while going through Michio Kaku’s book, “Physics of the Future – How science will shape human destiny and our daily lives by the year 2011″:

“Psychologists often compare the psychological profiles of adults to their profiles when they were children. Then one asks the question: What is the one quality that predicted their success in marriage, careers, wealth, etc.?

When one compensates for socioeconomic factors, one finds that one characteristic sometimes stands out from all the others: the ability to delay gratification. According to the long-term studies of Walter Mischel of Columbia University, and many others, children who were able to refrain from immediate gratification (e.g., eating a marshmallow given to them) and held out for greater long-term rewards (getting two marshmallows instead of one) consistently scored higher on almost every measure of future success, in life, love and career.”

I finished Strategic Brand Management by Shahid Khan. All-in-all it’s an useful reminder of all the marketing theory I have been taught in the university. However, I do have 2 main observations:

- it totally lacks practical examples from the industry: I’m more of a reader that enjoys analyzing examples drawn from the author’s own experience instead of just a plain enumeration of marketing definitions and concepts;

- the quality of the Kindle version is very poor, all the graphics are missing and it’s a total mess in the way they formatted the book to fit the Kindle screen.

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After a thorough research on Amazon’s best reviewed books, LinkedIn and Quora recommendations, I compiled a brief list of brand management books which I intend to read in 2012. I promise to keep the list updated and comment on them as I go through. Without further ado, here are my picks:

- (2011) Strategic Brand Management by Shahid Khan, Dr. Simon John and Marketing Club / link

- (2011) Brand Against the Machine by John Morgan / link

- (2011) Managing Product Management by Steven Haines / link

- (2011) Marketing Management 14th Edition by Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller / link

- (2011) Advanced Brand Management – Managing brands in a changing world by Paul Temporal / link

- (2010) B2B Brand Management – The success dimensions of business brands by Philip Kotler and Waldemar Pfoertsch / link

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A beautifully written piece by Milton Glaser on life, wisdom, creativity. It’s a powerful and challenging collection of ideas to which I often return in search of inspiration. You can find the 2-pages PDF here, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I added below 2 of my favourite paragraphs from his speech:

“I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client (…) I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle” (lesson You can only work for people you like)

“(…) What is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.” (lesson Professionalism is not enough)