As your resident revolutionaries, Mark Simmons and I have written a new book called Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution. It’s out now in hardcover from HarperCollins. What’s it all about?

Over the past few years, the relationship between consumers and brands has shifted dramatically. Seismically, even. Everything is different, from how brands are viewed to the mechanisms through which we experience them.

Marketers are mostly still working and thinking the same way they always have: buying media and creating messages that interrupt, rather than connect with consumers. Why? Because that’s the way it has always been done and it’s comfortable to pretend that poor results are due to wars or consumer confidence …and things will normalize before too long.

Consumers have changed, and the media market has fragmented beyond all recognition. Today it’s almost impossible to build brand awareness quickly through buying a traditional media campaign. Target audiences can’t be reached anymore by running a campaign in one place.

A revolutionary approach to marketing is long overdue. Enter Punk Marketing.

Punk Marketing is not based on a single idea or technique but a defined approach to doing things differently based upon a clear set of principles as outlined in the Punk Marketing Manifesto…because every good revolution has a kick-ass manifesto.

Just as punk rock made us aware it was OK to disregard the bollocks, Punk Marketing provides a set of guiding principles for how marketers – whether in large corporations, agencies or small businesses – can use the shift in power to the consumer to their advantage. Because it is, after all, the consumer that pays the bills.

Punk Marketing is not intended to be read as just another business book. We just didn’t write it that way. We want our readers to have fun and even scream out a little as they giggle and roll their eyes. We don’t want them to necessarily read the chapters in sequence because each is written as a stand-alone piece that doesn’t live or die on arguments put forward in previous chapters.

There is no single idea in Punk Marketing on which all else hinges. We use a theme to tie everything together based on principles that have existed forever but should now be followed with urgency to win back the consumer.

Marketers need a manifesto to change the thinking from a set of outdated ideas to another, more relevant set. The Punk Marketing manifesto establishes the guiding principles by which likeminded revolutionaries can live.

Curious?

Ok. Here’s a special sneak preview. Think of these as the headlines of the magazine-article-like chapters. Together they comprise that theme we mentioned.

Article One. Avoid risk and die.
Article Two: Why Not Ask ‘Why Not?’
Article Three: Take a Strong Stand
Article Four: Don’t Pander
Article Five: Give Up Control
Article Six: Expose Yourself
Article Seven: Make Enemies
Article Eight: Constantly Surprise People
Article Nine: Outthink the Competition
Article Ten: Don’t Be Seduced by Technology (yes, I said don’t)
Article Eleven: Assume the Worst
Article Twelve: No More Marketing Bullshit (yes, I said bullshit)
Article Thirteen: Accept Nothing Less Than Great
Article Fourteen: Be True To Yourself

And finally…Article Fifteen: Use the Tools of the Revolution

Got that? Great. Now it’s time for the quiz.

So who cares about Punk Marketing? Who will line up to join this revolution? Here’s the big secret: In this post-modern 21st century, just about everyone is involved in marketing, no matter what their business card says. Of course, not everyone is a leader…but every single smart businessperson wants to know where their customers are going and looking and on what they’re basing their purchasing decisions. So it’s pretty huge, if we do say so ourselves.

Ok, so in summary: Punk Marketing is not about advocating a particular marketing tactic. It doesn’t exist to knock down advertising and advocate PR. Its purpose is clear: To incite the marketing revolution that’s overdue so the world no longer has to regard marketing as a dying dinosaur.

To learn more see our very unusual site at www.PunkMarketing.com.

We’re excited. Viva la revolution! And to…

Learn more about having a Punk attitude…