A helpfully practical and authoritative introduction to the marketing of scientific products.
Chabe, a veteran marketing consultant, explains how scientists can effectively sell their ideas commercially.
The author notes a burgeoning trend of “science-driven entrepreneurial ventures,” a trend that poses special challenges for scientists unaccustomed to marketing. She calls this problem the “exposure conundrum,” in which the scientific labor that leads to a new discovery seems categorically different from the work of garnering recognition for it. In order to bridge the gap, the author, with impressive breadth and meticulous attention to detail, sketches a vision of what she calls the “distinct discipline of science marketing”—a comprehensive set of strategies aimed at scientists. She breaks her treatment into three basic “pillars.” First, one must precisely identify a target audience for whom the product is most relevant, she says. Second, one must figure out the product’s “frame,” or the “value vow,” which articulates the needs and desires that the product will satisfy. Thirdly, she concludes, one must locate the best channels to connect with the target audience. Chabe’s discussion is remarkably wide-ranging and covers not only brand storytelling and campaign strategy, but also the basics of website analytics and the opportunities of trade shows. She convincingly advocates for a marketing approach that blends the analytical rigor of science with the creative presentation of “resonant themes,” and she speaks with clarity about the challenges of presenting technically prohibitive ideas to an audience that may not be familiar with them. She keenly understands the peculiar nature of competition in the science world, which includes not only rivals in the conventional sense, but also “indirect challenges,” such as technological obstacles and resistance to innovation.
Chabe is the founder and CEO of High Touch Group, one of the few marketing firms to specialize in science marketing, and she writes confidently from a wealth of experience and obvious expertise. Despite the book’s brevity and concision, it’s almost encyclopedically thorough, which makes it a perfect one-volume reference for newcomers to the subject. The author intends the book to be a practical guide with actionable counsel conveyed in straightforward, accessible language, and she accomplishes all these things. She achieves even more, however, by reflecting thoughtfully on the ways in which superior science marketing not only makes life easier for scientists with products to peddle, but also improves the world at large: “It can galvanize individuals, communities, and even nations to align behaviors and policies with scientifically backed solutions. Marketing amplifies the voice of science, enabling it to resonate in places that matter most—from board room to policy chambers to kitchen tables.” The world certainly has no shortage of popular books about marketing, but very few speak specifically to science marketing while also avoiding vague reductionism and facile formulas. Chabe’s contribution is intellectually rigorous and free of the condescension and hyper-generality that typify so many other books in the genre. Anyone who works at the intersection of science and commerce is likely to benefit from reading this handbook with care.
A helpfully practical and authoritative introduction to the marketing of scientific products.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781642256024
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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