Brand Hijack: Marketing Without Marketing

Brand hi–jack (brand hi?jak?): consumer takeover (synonym). The consumer’s act of commandeering a brand from the marketing professionals and driving its evolution. Out of nowhere, a brand like Red Bull or The Blair Witch Project takes off with little or no conventional marketing. How do these “accidents” really happen, and why do they ultimately succeed or fail? Welcome to marketing without marketing: the emergence of the hijacked brand. Don’t let the all-too-clever subtitle fool you. Far from representing the absence of marketing, this book describes the most complex sort of marketing possible, as well as the least understood. Brand Hijack offers a practical how-to guide to marketing that finally engages the marketplace. It presents an alternative to conventional marketing wisdom, one that addresses such industry crises as media saturation, consumer evolution, and the erosion of image marketing. Fair warning: this book is not for everyone. It proposes untraditional, even counterintuitive practices: Let the marketplace take over. Stop clamoring for control and learn to be spontaneous. Be bold enough to accept a certain degree of uncertainty in definition of your brands. Brand hijacking is a radical concept: letting go. What a frightening, yet oddly liberating thought.