All Business Is Local: Why Place Matters More than Ever in a Global, Virtual World

In this timely new book, Quelch, dean of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), and Jocz, a research associate at Harvard Business School, examine the importance of place to the practice of marketing, particularly at the local level. According to the authors, when marketers try to expand brands to achieve a leading global share, they run the risk of being upstaged by local competitors and upstart entrepreneurs. The solution, they suggest, is to strategically use the concept of place, which determines how consumers interact with a product and influences their choice of brands. They examine the primary types of place from the psychological and physical to the virtual and global, showing how place is critical to nearly every marketing planning decision and why it must never be an afterthought. Using examples from Real Madrid to L’eggs, they advocate putting forth a new focus on local that treats market areas as places defined by social interrelationships and sets of common tastes and values. Full of wise counsel on how to approach brand extension from the perspective of place, the advice will be invaluable for marketers devising future strategies. Agent: Jacqueline Murphy, Inkwell Management. (Feb.)