Jean-Pierre LaCroix’s ThinkBlink Manifesto: Creating Deep, Lasting Emotional Brand Connections in the Blink of an Eye is an ambitious and very practical guide to modern branding that argues the era of competing primarily through product features and functional benefits is over. Drawing on more than four decades of experience leading branding and design firm SLD, LaCroix argues that consumers make purchasing decisions emotionally long before they rationalize them intellectually. The book’s central notion, the “Blink Factor,” argues that brands have only an instant to make an emotional connection, and those that succeed in creating lasting emotional connections rather than simply communicating information are the ones that earn lasting loyalty. While the book is written primarily for marketing professionals, its broader argument concerns human psychology, claiming that successful branding ultimately depends on understanding how people think, feel, remember, and form relationships.
Your Business Growth Playbook by Jeremy B. Shapiro introduces entrepreneurs to different plateaus that can happen to any size business. It can be anything from growth stalling to new customers being harder to find. Shapiro explains that instead of avoiding plateaus, businesses should anticipate them and plan for them before they hit. He asks the question, “What are the tactical and strategic methods that they choose to find new growth and get ‘unstuck’?” This guide not only answers this question but also offers real-world examples that businesses can implement right now, and spells out the formula for the Three Big Levers to Scale Revenue.
The Consistent Consumer by Ken Beller, Steve Weiss, and Louis Patler does a great job challenging the assumption that demographics influence consumers’ behavior. The authors make a good argument about how deeply rooted values shape why consumers make the purchasing decisions that they do. Just looking at the first chapter alone, the authors build a foundation that defines values as emotional and behavioral drivers. By the second chapter, readers are introduced to the concept of cultural “icons” that help to mold generational identity. So, they don’t waste time establishing a case for a value-based approach to buying. Further in, they discuss how behaviors can change as circumstances do. However, the value remains surprisingly stable over time, making this a powerful indicator that companies can use to understand their customers as opposed to reacting to the changing trends.
