Fail Better

The world’s worst marketers and what we can learn from them
Stephen Brown

A book that describes the marketing formula behind some of the most successful businesses ever – fail, fail and fail again!

This book identifies the 30 “worst” marketers of all time and shows that, although their marketing methods are contrary to received wisdom, they’re brilliantly successful all the same. If ever a phrase captured the essence of an individual, it is surely Samuel Beckett’s “fail better.” Beckett failed and failed consistently throughout his long literary apprenticeship, until he finally triumphed at the age of 50 with Waiting for Godot, the path-breaking play that earned Beckett the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Beckett’s fail better philosophy is surprisingly commonplace. Business history shows that it is those who persevere despite repeated failure who win through in the end. Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Walt Disney, James Dyson, Madonna, Steve Jobs, Mary K. Ash, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Martha Stewart all epitomize this never-say-die mindset. Failure, it seems, is one of the keys to commercial success, arguably the key. This book champions those who challenged conventional marketing wisdom, who felt worst practice is often best practice, and who should have failed but triumphed spectacularly by doing things “wrong”.

STEPHEN BROWN is professor of marketing research at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. He is the author of numerous marketing books, including recently The Marketing Code (Cyan/Marshall Cavendish) and Wizard! (Cyan).

978-0-462-09904-0
£9.99 PB
Rights: All
Sales territory:World ex. Asia & ANZ
Asia & ANZ sales: MCL*
June 2007