Michael J. Silverstein

Honestly, I stopped reading this halfway through. It was interesting for a while, the marketers trying to segment the female shopping market into various groups with different shopping habits. The problem was that there was not as much distinction as they were trying to portray, as many groups named the same top retailers as their preferred stores. It made me wonder if the way the research was conducted was to provide them a list of retailers to choose from, which would obviously skew the results from the get-go.… (meer)

I mostly picked this up because it was the best choice at the airport bookstore, but I had also read intriguing reviews. And I figured I was one of the consumers this book is about; I buy many of the brands they discuss. It's mostly written as a guide to marketing to these consumers, but it's still an interesting read when you're just a consumer rather than a brand owner. I don't feel manipulated after reading it. It makes homeowning sound dangerously expensive in ways I hadn't considered. Some of the numbers seemed off -- I only earn about half the salary they give for the official demographic that buys these products. Everything else rang true, however. In quoting random consumers, there seemed to be an unusually high number of librarians.… (meer)