There is a solid idea buried beneath all the padding in Levinson's (Guerrilla Marketing) latest. He posits that creating a "meme" (a simple icon that represents a complex idea about a brand) is the way to break through all the marketing clutter out there. Ironically, the clutter that Levinson wraps around his central message makes it a lot harder for readers to grasp this idea. There are tangents, such as 50 reasons people buy a product, and long digressions about marketing myths. Worse, it is often hard to tell why some icons—the Jolly Green Giant, for example—are memes by Levinson's reckoning, but the Nike swoosh is not. But the main idea of creating a symbol that explains everything your product stands for at a glance is very appealing. (Oct.)
