Cultural Strategy - Holt, Douglas (Founding Partner of The Cultural Strategy Group, New York) a Cameron, Douglas (Founding Partner of Amalgamated Advertising Agency, New York)

How do we explain the breakthrough market success of businesses like Nike, Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's, and Jack Daniel's? Conventional models of strategy and innovation simply don't work. The most influential ideas on innovation are shaped by the worldview of engineers and economists - build a better mousetrap and the world will take notice. Holt and Cameron challenge this conventional wisdom and take an entirely different approach: champion a better ideology and the world will take notice as well. Holt and Cameron build a powerful new theory of cultural innovation. Brands in mature categories get locked into a form of cultural mimicry, what the authors call a cultural orthodoxy. Historical changes in society create demand for new culture - ideological opportunities that upend this orthodoxy. Cultural innovations repurpose cultural content lurking in subcultures to respond to this emerging demand, leapfrogging entrenched incumbents. Cultural Strategy guides managers and entrepreneurs on how to leverage ideological opportunities: How managers can use culture to out-innovate their competitorsHow entrepreneurs can identify new market opportunities that big companies missHow underfunded challengers can win against category GoliathsHow technology businesses can avoid commoditizationHow social entrepreneurs can develop businesses that appeal to more than just fellow activistsHow subcultural brands can break out of the 'cultural chasm' to mass market successHow global brands can pursue cross-cultural strategies to succeed in local marketsHow organizations can maximize their innovation capabilities by avoiding the brand bureaucracy trap Written by leading authorities on branding in the world today, along with one of the advertising industry's leading visionaries, Cultural Strategy transforms what has always been treated as the "intuitive" side of market innovation into a systematic strategic discipline.