The 365 Best Business Books Of All-Time: Fascinate

How’s 2018 treating you so far?

We are three days in, and it’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for one of the best marketing books of all-time. This week we’ll focus on Fascinate by Sally Hogshead.

My Key Takeaway/Principle

You can tell if you have a fascinating brand by the hallmarks of strong emotional reactions, advocates, “cultural shorthand”, conversation, competition re-alignment and social revolutions.

Let’s walk through each of those golden hallmarks one by one.

Fascinating messages provoke strong and immediate emotional reactions. The best example of that these days is Donald Trump — you either you love him or you hate him. You are not indifferent about him. If you’ve somehow escaped this fact over the past couple of years, just do a search for Trump on Twitter and you’ll have all the evidence you need.

Fascinating messages create advocates. NASCAR has advocates. Warren Buffett has advocates. Harley Davidson has advocates. Do you?

Fascinating messages become “cultural shorthand” for a specific set of actions or values. Some brands have a point of view so strong that they become part of a person’s identity. Just like Apple stands for beautiful design.

Fascinating messages incite conversation. Fascinating people and brands get talked about. A lot. As Sally says they earn more attention than they pay for.

Fascinating messages force competitors to realign around it. Zappos.com has done an amazing job of this in the online retail market. When people start copying what you are doing with hopes of riding on your coattails, you know you are fascinating.

And finally,

Fascinating messages trigger social revolutions and force us to think differently about ourselves and the world. If you are a fan of U2 or The Beatles, Bono and John Lennon are great examples here.

Questions to ask yourself

• Which of the golden hallmarks does my brand have today?
• How can I amplify more of what we already have?

What else is in the book?

We’ve covered the hallmarks of the book here, and the rest of the book deals with the triggers that brands use in order to create the results we’ve focussed on here today.

This year (2018) I’m reading and summarizing the top 365 business books of all-time. You can get the full list of books, and links to my reviews of each book, by clicking here.

Happy learning!