Book Review

Marketing Public Relations - The Blog

Review by Gaetan Giannini

It has long been my belief that positioning a firm’s executives and knowledge workers as experts in the eyes of media and the company’s stakeholders is one of the most effective ways to promote a brand, product, or service. It has been my experience that too few firms take advantage of this opportunity. To venture a guess, I will say that the reason for this lack of enthusiasm for expert-based promotion is ignorance of this type of promotion or the insecurity marketers feel about this type of activity. It is with a fair amount of certainty that I claim the reason for both the former and latter stem from the fact that colleges and universities don’t teach this within their business and marketing curriculum, and that marketing firms and advertising agencies largely ignore this approach to marketing. Fortunately, there is someone out there with his eye on the ball, Ken Lizotte, author of The Expert’s Edge (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

Lizotte’s book is a well written guide to turning garden variety experts into “thought leaders.” The foundation of his philosophy is based on his five pillars of thought leadership: publishing (articles & book); public speaking; conducting research (he calls it “fresh thinking”); leveraging the internet; and using the media. The book’s primary audience consists of consultants, small business owners, and people interested in creating a “personal brand,” and for those of you who fall into one of these categories, this book is a must read. I also want to suggest that The Expert’s Edge is a great resource for marketers in companies of any size. Lizotte’s tactics for turning oneself into a thought leader can, with a little ingenuity, be used by marketers for transforming their firm’s executives and knowledge workers into thought leaders.

Oh, and for you college professors teaching marketing or PR, this book makes a great complement to many texts. I can recommend it specifically to those using Marketing Public Relations as supplemental reading for chapters 11 and 12-especially for graduate level courses.

Gaetan T. Giannini, MBA is an Assistant Professor and Chair at Cedar Crest College's Department of Business, Management & Economics, and author of the new book Marketing Public Relations by Prentice Hall.