Book

I'm going to start ordering the blurbs by their evaluation of the book under review, from better to worse.

Zaltman, Gerald. How customers think: essential insights into the mind of the market. Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Choice: Zaltman (marketing, Harvard Business School) offers an insightful new way of understanding consumers...It is the final section that sets the book above so many others; it offers practical advice on how marketers can change their mindsets to more fully appreciate consumer complexity and, from this new perspective, capitalize on it. Any student, academic, or practitioner interested in better understanding consumer complexity will benefit from this fascinating but highly readable book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections." Publishers Weekly: “Drawing on an impressive array of recent multidisciplinary research, Zaltman is especially provocative on the importance of memory, metaphor and storytelling in customers’ decision making…outlines efficient methods…Zaltman’s smart, practical analysis and many success stories will hold special appeal for those facing competitive markets, as well as for those rethinking more limited marketing approaches.” Journal of Marketing Research: “When reading the work of Gerald Zaltman, I always expect to find fresh insights and provocative challenges delivered with rigor and panache. How Customers Think meets my high expectations…A beautifully conceived argument.” Journal of Business Strategy: “Quality thinking…Genuinely fascinating…an accessible and scientifically-sound foray into human thinking and draws heavily on insights from many fields beyond marketing…a brilliant but dense book that will yield little to the casual reader…firmly grounded in the scientific research of multiple disciplines…” Fast Company: “exciting in a way that business books rarely are: it advances provocative ideas that set the stage for real learning and change.” CIO Insight: “This book is not easy reading. Zaltman is not big on demonstrating how to put his findings to work. And he tends to combine the worse of business-school speak with accurate but off-putting phrases from biology and neurology…And yet it is worth the effort so you can understand critical distinctions.” Sport Marketing Quarterly: “not a traditional, quick-read marketing book. Zaltman goes into great detail to make his points. However, the author fails to take the next step in demonstrating how to incorporate these findings into market research. Zaltman’s tone at times is condescending to the current business executive and academic researcher studying consumer behavior. Zaltman offers some interesting ideas on thinking; however, I do not see him creating the major paradigm shift that he claims.”