Rating: 
Summary: Something to think about
Review: I've never seen such polarized comments on a book here on Amazon. I find it incredibly hard to understand how someone could rate this book so poorly unless they are threatened by it. I agree that the author does not give specific examples or hard evidence for particular programs but I think it may be difficult considering the wide diversity of companies that can apply the philosophy.I guess that's the point - it's a PHILOSOPHY, not a science. However, the author recommends that if you - as a client - are paying anyone to do marketing or advertising, you should be asking for measurable results so you can make informed decisions about where to spend your money. How can anyone disagree with that? Oh, I know. If you're an ad or marketing agency that is afraid of that question... I own a marketing agency and less than 10% of my clients used to never ask about measurability. Now I insist upon it. A true marketing partner should help their client grow their business - if they can't, they should be fired. There are clearly a lot of people on this review forum that are threatened by that. The fact is, the author is stating something of an obvious but it is a message that is somehow lost throughout corporate bureaucracy and too many marketing directors doing the safe thing. I recommend this book, if for anything else to make you think. If it didn't make you think as a client, your head is in the sand. If it didn't make you think as an agency, you will soon be challenged by competitors.
Rating: 
Summary: Much better marketing books out there
Review: Ross Perot is a billionaire Biz man. Success doesn't mean he would be a good prez. There are a few good ideas and suggestions in the book. Not much is new or innovative. I am a mulit-millionaire as I suppose Mark Stevens is also. In my business I would only find about 3% of this book useful. If it is about Coke, Pepsi, Tide or IBM it's all same rhetoric. If your trying to establish yourself selling Bridles, Trowels, Carpet Cleaning,
Frame Shop, Gas Station, Tile Adhesive, RV camp ground or branding a name in an niche industry you would be hard pressed to view this as a helpful book.
Rating:
Summary: Simple
Review: I bought this book during my summer holiday, and as a student with some marketing experience I found it quite funny at first, as there were some nice 'examples' of how not to do it. But after a while the author was just repeating himself.
You could summarize this entire book in one breath: "Do not engage in any marketing activities that do not have a positive NPV." Something that someone with the slightest bit of common sense could conclude.
The cover however was brilliant as it did exactly what it was supposed to do, draw my attention.
Rating: 
Summary: Think twice
Review: What a waste of time. The most basic ideas, repeated over and over again as if they are new. Know what you want to achieve! Know your product! Good marketing sells product! Bad marketing doesn't! Wow. That's certainly insightful. The author advises CEOs to avoid ego projects, but this is certainly a vanity project. If people don't know the aim of their marketing, their audience and ways to reach them, and don't measure their results, then shame on them. But this book still won't help them do it. However, you gotta give him credit for a catchy title. Shame the rest of the book didn't measure up.
Rating:
Summary: not your best marketing book
Review: I bought this book thinking it would give me some insight into how to market my business - but I found no useful examples. Had I read the negative reviews on amazon.com I would have skipped this purchase. So, instead, I am on amazon.com warning others who my be considering buying this book. I'm going to attempt to return this book to the publisher as well.
Rating:
Summary: Blah Blah Blah
Review: I don't really care to enter the fray that this book seems to have caused, but having read it and having expected something more from it, I guess the only thing I learned was that the old adage about judging a book by its cover (or in this case its title) is true. Other marketing books make mistakes by overloading on case studies. This one does the exact opposite. I can't understand why an author of a book like this wouldn't use case studies on every page (a la Seth Godin's Purple Cow) to make his points unless he's either A) afraid that if he uses an actual client example someone will check up and find something negative or B) that there simply are no case studies to prove his point. By the way, I am not an ad agency employee or a marketing expert. I am simply a businessperson who feels like this book does not deliver on what it appears to promise.
Rating:
Summary: Learned Nothing - Simple as that!
Review: This book is nothing but endless ranting by an individual who has no real experience in marketing. He bases marketing plans off of crazy ideas and can not prove any ROI to justify them. Would you trust this person and his company to market your business? I think not! The book is all hype, just to make money. Sad. he has no appreciation for the marketing world at all. Don't waste your money or time on this book.
Rating:
Summary: It makes you think!
Review: Stevens book doesn't provide a lot of answers and it is a bit general, but in this day and age there are no easy answers or road maps. What the book does is make you think. The point is to get you to examine what you're doing, how you're doing it and what your expectations are and should be. Stevens doesn't ask all the right questions, but if this book doesn't make you want to examine your marketing strategy you probably need to find another line of work!
Rating:
Summary: No stars- takes "Dumbing down" to a new level
Review: Someone gave me this book as a joke. And it is a joke. The title is the only thing that is making it sell, if it is selling (hah!) I thumbed through it expecting to glean at least something from it but it was for naught. This is a "vanity book" at best. Long boring passages that don't add any knowledge- simply boring people with stuff they already know. Wait- there is a gem - "marketing should lead to sales!!" WOWSER!!! Thank you! How could I have NOT realized that! Dumbest book I have seen in a long time. Is there an award for "Dumbest Book"? - we have a contender.
Rating:
Summary: One trick pony- with a catchy title.
Review: One trick pony- with a catchy title. Perfect example of someone who has one idea (albeit not a new one) who flogs it and pumps it into a book. Surely, this author must have been paid by the word since he manages to pad everything he says to the point where he sounds like a patronizing consultant. His clients (for the 3 months he keeps them??) must freak out at this kind of "pap." My favorite banality in the book is his list of "8 Myths of Marketing" which he has made up. No one would agree with these myths, yet he spends a entire book trying to prove HIS made up myths to be false. It is truly an exercise in hysteria. Why the poor sap has to keep posting positive reviews here is obvious? He is sweating bullets- posers like him have to worry when they have no credentials and their careers are based on "the big lie" and "boldness" - If you want to laugh like a hyena, glance at the book, if only to see how a "supposed critic" makes a total fool out of himself. "I told the business world their marketing sucks!" is a gambit to try to open a few doors. It worked a couple times so now he thinks he is a superstar? Has he ever really taken a business and doubled it? How about grown it by 10% even? The National Enquirer approach for shock value can only go so far. The readers can see the stitches on this two headed monkey. I'd say the book is blond, but I don't want to catch dispersions on blonds.
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