Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: ...He offers some interesting ideas, but unfortunately I doubt that any of his examples would result in positive ROI for any of the companies involved. True to its title (a reference to the eccentric writing style of writer Hunter S. Thompson), "Gonzo Marketing" also wanders and leaves along the way to its business advice. Alas, the odd writing style (sometimes quite readable, sometimes not) failed to entertain or educate me, and it certainly did not convince me that the author's proposals were worthwhile. The recurring central theme of Gonzo Marketing is that companies should try to connect with customers by having employees or agents participate in communities that include the company's customers. "Companies don't give a damn about advertising . . . . What they care about is connecting with potential customers by whatever means is most effective." (p. 186) Locke suggests that a company like Ford and Dell empower its employees to participate (on company time) in online communitites which include potential customers. For example, Dell could encourage its employees who believe in home schooling, to participate in online communities about home-schooling, not writing sales pitches about Dell, but instead being visible as helpful community members who happen to identify themselves as Dell employees. Locke also suggests that Ford employees who like gardening could participate in related online communities, and perhaps other participants in the community will decide they like Ford and buy Ford trucks. This is not a new idea. Local business owners have long been involved in their local communities, by sponsoring Little League teams, by encouraging staff to join the local bowling league as a team, by donating supplies to the local Habitat to Humanity project -- and quite simply, by being actual members in the local community who share the interests and goals of many other members of that local community. People like to do business with people they like. Alas, Locke's examples all seem to fail, not because they are "wrong" but because they all appear to fail the ROI (return-on-investment) test required of all intelligent marketing. They also create huge risks of brand dilution and potential legal liability. Another of Locke's ideas is to "tell a story" or create a fun, playful message that can be associated with your company or product. Thus, 'marketing' becomes more engaging, more interesting, and more accepted by consumers -- but alas, when marketing is so entertaining that it is accepted, it often is no longer marketing. Oddly, the real message I drew from "Gonzo Marketing" is that companies can do interesting, different styles of marketing, as long as they focus on being "useful" or helpful to the audience they are addressing. It's not enough to be "relevant" or "entertaining" -- those are good, but good marketers must go further: be useful, be helpful -- be someone that your audience "knows, likes, and trusts." That last phrase is not from Gonzo Marketing -- it is one of my standard marketing mantras... Gonzo Marketing is not a dreadful book; I read it through, and I enjoyed parts. But I think the book could have been much better if a capable editor had carved its 214 pages down to about 80.
Rating: 
Summary: It's working for me, but not the way Locke meant it to
Review: A friend getting her Masters in marketing recommended this book to me. I have a website of columns and stories - essentially an organized blog - and have been trying to increase my visitors. That was the perspective through which I read the book: how can I use the suggestions Locke makes for business to improve their online presence to grow my own audience. While Locke doesn't focus on personal website, the book did get me thinking. As I read, I constantly had to pt the book down to jot down some new ideas. The book got me to start thinking about who my target audience is. That's harder than it sounds, as I don't write about a specific subject, rather whatever I like. Locke recommends that companies let their employees become active in online groups about what interests them in an attempt to build credibility with these micromarkets in lieu of annoying web advertising. Effectively communicate with a plethora of micromarkets and all of a sudden the company has a significant online presence that doesn't irritate people. I followed that advice and started posting on sites that pertain to my interests. I don't blatantly promote my articles, but just participate in the conversation, figuring if someone is interested by my post he or she will click on my URL in my signature file or click on my bio, see my URL, and follow it through. Plus, I enjoy it. Locke doesn't get too specific on his gonzo model until the next to last chapter. It covers only 20 out of 214 pages of the book. The rest of it is spent philosophizing and critiquing other forms of marketing. Did this help me? Yes. But it doesn't do much to push his model. He'd do a better job of selling it to businesses if he had a case study or two. The chapter on the model would've made a good article in a business magazine, asking for a company to work with him on this approach. Chronicling the advantages - and limitations (which he glosses over) - of the model would make for a more convincing argument. What he's calling for is radical and to a non-business person, it makes sense. But without a few examples, I doubt any business is going to start restructuring its approach to online marketing. After all that criticism, why did I give this book four out of five stars? Well, it is a good read and it's working for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Gonzo Marketing indeed
Review: After reading about half this book, I just put it aside. Chris makes good points and hits home on the need to steer marketing in a direction that is better aligned with peoples' needs, helping them do what they want to do instead of bombarding them with junk. It's rather philosophical, too much so for my taste. If you like that style of writing and have an interest in Locke's ideas, you may love this book. Personally, I loved Cluetrain, and one day may pick up where I left off in Gonzo. If you're thinkin' about buying Gonzo, go for it. It's cool, it's different, got some great ideas, but just wasn't my style.
Rating:
Summary: All filler, no killer
Review: Christopher Locke is known for his online rants against traditional corporate systems, and his last book Cluetrain was a hit with marketers looking to engage, rather than target, potential consumers. While I haven't read his rants or his previous book, I did have the dubious pleasure of receiving his new one, Gonzo Marketing, which apparently builds upon his ideas from Cluetrain, but adds more scattered filler. Like his idol Hunter S. Thompson, Locke's writing is all over the place. Uptight suits might find his prose amusing and cutting-edge, but to me it seemed like a lot of hot air. After almost 200 pages of random etymology, philosophy, and sociology in the vein of Robert Anton Wilson, but spliced with embarrassing dad humor, he finally gets to his theory, which is that companies looking to market on the web shouldn't think about marketing. Rather, they should build personal relationships with potential consumers, but still not push their products or services, since that would still be a form of marketing (one-on-one, or personal selling). As an example, he suggests that Ford pay employees to stay home and build web sites based on their own personal interests, such as organic gardening. And instead of linking Ford to their site, Ford would link the gardening site and encourage people to visit these underwritten - but not sponsored - sites. The hope is that organic gardeners might somehow become interested in Ford's products. While he makes some good points about consumers' repugnance of all forms of online advertising, and the overall ineffectiveness of mass communication on the web, his solution doesn't seem to hold much water or make any financial sense. And even if a company did use its resources to underwrite completely unrelated web sites to create these micro-communities and forums around unrelated fields, consumers would STILL be distrustful of the company. No matter how much Locke tries covering it up with his "zany" writing style, the fact remains that anti-marketing is still marketing, and in the end, his theory would, in practice, appear even more dubious and dishonest than traditional marketing. However, Locke does succeed at selling himself, and while I didn't find his "hey-look-at-me-I'm-not-wearing-a-tie!" shtick very entertaining, his charisma (or penchant for quoting dorky classic rock songs) will definitely win him over with the balding, stuffy suit set.
Rating:
Summary: Where's the revolution?
Review: Gonzo marketing was going to be the death of 'marketing as usual' in much the same way, I presume, that Cluetrain represented the "death of business as usual." neither happened so I guess either the world didn't listen or the author's didn't quite "get it".
Gonzo marketing is not an enjoyable read - it can be entertaining but that doesn't make it enjoyable. Just when Locke ought to settle down and actually build on an anecdote supporting his beliefs of a new framework of marketing he digresses (disingenously disappears?) into an aside and we're left wonder exactly what just happened.
The publication doesn't need to be written in dry corporate style to support it's thesis. However, it doesn't and the apparent liveliness of mass-media marketing suggests that this publicatioin was more internet evangilism than a practical means of getting your message across.
Rating: 
Summary: Good points, but too much rambling
Review: I bought the book because I liked the ideas mentioned on the back cover. Reading it is a different experience, though. I find it difficult to wade through all the rambling and extract much of use out of it, and I'm having trouble finishing it because one chapter is so much like the next I keep losing my place. I'm starting to think I shoud have let myself be satisfied with the back cover; I haven't learned much since then.
Rating:
Summary: Sweep Away the Cobwebs & See What's Behind Them
Review: I disagree with the recent review that thinks this subject only deserves an "article" instead of a book. The reviewer seems to think that because Locke does not provide a nice neat little well annotated map of the future of the Net as it relates to business and marketing that he hasn't done a service worthy of "book" status. Just because you recognize that something is wrong doesn't mean you know precisely what right is. We all know that the torrent of spam that we are daily assailed with is the wrong way to market on the Web (how many of you have really bought anything that was so advertised). But while Gonzo Marketing does not spell out the precise ABCs of what is developing in this New World, he does a very exemplary job of talking about it's roots and realities. I think perhaps the most important single word that is used in both Gonzo Marketing (and The Cluetrain Manifesto) is "voice". The Net and it's derivitive, the Web, are forums for the individual voice to speak quietly but to a huge audience. It is this voice, this individual human communication that matters, because while we'll all trash a spam email within milliseconds, most of us will responed to a truly individual message from another human being. This takes the market back to what is originally was before it was usurped by corporations to mean masses of blank faces, and present it as the simple aggregation of people who wish to have discourse about their daily needs and perhaps exchange a few items for a few other items. Never mind that we're not really a bartering economy anymore, the character of that ancient market place is still deeply embedded in our psyches and most of us feel comfortable on that more personal basis. Locke even points out that Amazon is participating in his view of the current Net market by the very fact that it lets it's buyers review the books they purchase and thereby pass on to others a personal account of the value of the product. So I say that you should buy the book if you are prepared to think for yourselves and project what Locke says onto whatever micro world you live and make money in. There simply are no books that can tell you extactly how to do it, although many claim to, but this book reminds you of lots of truths that you may have let slip into the sub-conscious realm, and once you have brought them back into view it is quite possible that you can apply Gonzo principles to whatever it is that you do with your life.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: I got to page 26 and gave up. Lockes writings lack focus and are void of humour. I read as much as I could with patience until it became clear this book was simply someone rambling on about nothing. Save your money for something worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: I got to page 26 and gave up. Lockes writings lack focus and are void of humour. I read as much as I could with patience until it became clear this book was simply someone rambling on about nothing. Save your money for something worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Getting It
Review: To bring humor to a topic requires mastery beyond that of a mere expert. In Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices, Christopher Locke exhibits a lot of things, but most of all, his hilarious wit shines bright over the often drab concepts of business. His mastery is not of how business is done best, but how it's done worst. While his feet might be firmly planted in the box, his head is decidedly unboxed. Locke evokes Esther Dyson's aphorism 'Always make new mistakes,' inviting corporate marketers and consumers alike to realize that markets aren't clean and tidy; they're messy and ugly - quick and dirty even. His ideas don't lend themselves to conclusive be-all, end-all solutions, but to random, dangling loose ends. And that's the point really, isn't it? The fault lines in the mass mind don't divide the markets, they are the markets. Their rumbling and shifting is where Gonzo Marketing collects and analyzes its data, like a seismograph of the new economy's undulating and ever-changing landscape. While corporations scramble to make sense of the paradigmatic wreckage of the Web, Locke sits back laughing. The Web has reconnected consumers with each other. We converse online about everything. "Markets are conversations," asserted The Cluetrain Manifesto (of which Locke was one of four co-authors), belying any established attempt to contain or coerce them. Gonzo Marketing invites business types to abandon their old ideas about markets and just join in the conversation, dammit! Don't come 'round here looking for answers to your marketing problems. Yes, we have no new panacea for your demographic woes today. But, if you're looking for an engaging romp through - and an enlightening rant about - the way business is done in the now, Gonzo Marketing is the blinking Exit sign on the box in your mind.
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