Patrick Barwise

There's a war on against the BBC. It is under threat as never before. And if we lose it, we won't get it back.The BBC is our most important cultural institution, our best-value entertainment provider, and the global face of Britain. It's our most trusted news source in a world of divisive disinformation. But it is facing relentless attacks by powerful commercial and political enemies, including deep funding cuts - much deeper than most people realise - with imminent further cuts threatened. This book busts the myths about the BBC and shows us how we can save it, before it's too late.

WHAT MAKES AN EFFECTIVE AND SUCCESSFUL MARKETING LEADER?The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader, by former McKinsey Partner Thomas Barta and senior London Business School professor Patrick Barwise, is the first research-based leadership book for marketers in the 21st century. Based on the largest ever research study of its kind, with detailed data on over 8,600 leaders in more than 170 countries, this game-changing book identifies 12 specific behaviors--or Powers--that drive marketers' business impact and career success. Reading it, you’ll learn how to:• MOBILIZE YOUR BOSS: Make an impact at the highest level and align marketing with the company's priorities.• MOBILIZE YOUR COLLEAGUES: Inspire and motivate your non-marketing colleagues to deliver a great customer experience.• MOBILIZE YOUR TEAM: Build and align a winning marketing team.• MOBILIZE YOURSELF: Focus on goals that will benefit your customers, your company and yourself, by meeting your own needs and ambitions. By zeroing in on the value creation zone ("V-Zone")--the all-important overlap between your company's and customers' needs--you’ll be able to help the business win in the market--and achieve your career goals. Warning: This is not a marketing book. It’s a leadership book for marketers, using the latest research on what works--and what doesn’t--in marketing's digital age. BONUS: Receive full access to an online self-assessment tool and other marketing leadership resources.

Strong customer-focused companies have a clear, relevant promise which they obsessively deliver day-in, day-out. At the same time, they relentlessly drive the market by evolving the offer in the face of market developments and opportunities. Because they meet customer needs better than the competition, again and again, they are able to generate sustainable, profitable, market-leading organic growth. The problem the book addresses is how to achieve this. The authors identify five key steps using their framework for success: Offer a clear, relevant customer promiseBuild customer trust by reliably delivering that promiseContinuously improve the promise, while still reliably delivering itDrive the market by innovating beyond the familiarSupport all this with an open organization that promotes frank discussion based on clear facts and market feedback. Above all the book runs counter to the fashionable claim that the starting-point for business success should be to find a 'blue-sky', 'out-of-the-box' breakthrough innovation. Barwise and Meehan use many compelling cases to illustrate how managers can find ways within their existing network and organization to achieve long term growth.

Most executives believe that winning and keeping customers requires offering something unique. But as physical products are seen as increasingly hard to differentiate, companies resort to branding, gimmicks, and "thinking outside the box." Meanwhile, customers are less satisfied than they were a decade ago. Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan argue that most companies have taken differentiation so far that they've left their customers behind. Customers don't want bells and whistles and don't care about trivial differences between brands. What they really want are quality products, reliable services, and fair value for money. Yet most companies consistently fail to meet these basic customer needs. Simply Better is a no-nonsense, back-to-basics manifesto for today's businesses. Barwise and Meehan argue that successful differentiation lies not in unique selling propositions, but in generic category benefits, such as good service, on-time delivery, and quality products, that any company can provide. The key is to deliver these consistently better than competitors. Illustrating this customer-focused differentiation through vivid examples of companies, including Toyota, P&G, Hilti, Tesco, and Ryanair, Simply Better outlines an actionable framework managers can use to: * Understand what customers really value and why they buy the brands they do * Discover basic, unmet needs ripe for reliable solutions * Channel customer dissatisfaction into performance improvements * Balance in-the-box thinking in strategy and innovation with out-of-the-box thinking in advertising and communications * Create a learning culture that continuously responds to changing customer needs While being unique might be exciting and appealing, it doesn't drive business success. Simply Better shows how meeting and exceeding the most ordinary of customer expectations can lead to extraordinary--and lasting--rewards.

This book by two leading experts takes a fresh look at the nature of television, starting from an audience perspective. It draws on over twenty years of research about the audience in the United States and Britain and about the many ways in which television is funded and organized around the world. The overall picture which emerges is of: a medium which is watched for several hours a day but usually at only a low level of involvement; an audience which views mainly for relaxation but which actively chooses favourite programmes; a flowering of new channels but with no fundamental change in what or how people watch; programmes costing millions to produce but only a few pennies to view; a wide range of programme types apparently similar to the range of print media but with nothing like the same degree of audience 'segmentation'; a global communication medium of dazzling scale, speed, and impact but which is slow at conveying complex information and perhaps less powerful than generally assumed. The book is packed with information and insights yet is highly readable. It is unique in relating so many of the issues raised by television to how we watch it. There is also a highly regarded appendix on advertising, as well as technical notes, a glossary, and references for further reading.