In the following video, I give a quick, 5-minute book review of The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI written by none other than Carlos Gil. I give the book 5 out of 5 starts and highly recommend giving it a read. Please enjoy the videos below and subscribe to my Youtube channel to be the notified when new videos are added.

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The End of Marketing Book Review

I am going to change it up this week and talk about a book that I just finished reading, but this isn’t really a book review.

What I am hoping to do is not just tell you about the book but contextualize it in a way that you can take action. Otherwise, what’s the point. We don’t read these books for entertainment value.

The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI written by none other than Carlos Gil.

Carlos is actually a personal friend of mine. I know his family. He knows my family … and we even went to a 49er game together a few years ago.

And what I admire about Carlos is his passion. And if you know Carlos, you know exactly what I mean.
Ok, so let’s get into the book.

Carlos does a really good job contextualizing marketing in a way that makes it relevant to most audiences, and equate it to things that he cares about like professional wrestling.

In chapter 3, he talks about brands being likable but also being savage, like Randy. He was of course talking about Randy “the Macho Man” Savage.

I was also a hulk-a-maniac, and WWF/NWA and AWA fan of the early 80’s, I can really appreciate his analogies. I, personally was more of a Tito Santana & Jimmy the Superfly Snuka, but I digress.

His book goes pretty deep in everything from audiences, specific social platforms, organic reach, paid reach, influencer marketing, employee advocacy and so much more.

There was one portion of the book that really spoke to me, and on the surface, it’s very intuitive. But surprisingly and still today, many companies don’t follow these 5 basic principles.

Be real.

Seems straightforward right? Well it is and it isn’t. Being real means taking risks and taking a stand for what you believe in. Not being afraid to aligning your narrative to a larger cultural or societal issue. The problem is that many companies don’t know what it means to be real. Mainly because they don’t know yet what they stand for.

Be relevant.

As I was reading this chapter, it reminded me of Super Bowl XLVII (47) with the Baltimore Ravens and the 49ers. To refresh your memory, the 49ers were down 18 points at half time. The power went out for like 30 minutes and then the infamous Oreo tweet happened. I actually missed it because I was like 5 IPAs in and not in the best mood.

Nonetheless, while the Oreo tweet was a success, every brand since then has tried to do the same and hi jack cultural events in order to reach a large audience. The issue is .. they aren’t doing a really good job because they aren’t being true to their real audience.

Don’t Sell.

I don’t necessarily agree with Carlos on this point, and maybe its just a matter of semantics. But I do understand what Carlos means by “not selling” and he give a great example of how DJ Khaled weaves in Ciroc Vodka into his daily storytelling, which is definitely a good practice for companies.

Celebrate Success.

In this context, Carlos is talking about social intelligence and essentially building brand advocacy with your customers. So, in essence, when they buy your product and talk about it online, or write a review on Amazon.com or if you are B2B company and there’s a review on G2Crowd, Carlos is saying that brands need to acknowledge it and celebrate it.

Win more.

And wining can mean a lot of different things to different people. For me, it’s destroying the competition by any means necessary. Better content, better stories. Better influencer marketing programs and better social customer service.

When you are better than your competitors, you sell more products. And when that happens, you really do win. The only caveat is that you have to have a good product too.

What I love about this book, is that it’s applicable to marketing managers, entrepreneurs, small business owners and even college students.

You can essentially read and study this book and know just about everything you need to know to be successful using social media, not just for the company you work for but it also applies to building your own brand.

I’ve actually decided to make this book mandatory reading for my class at San Jost State next semester.

Hope you enjoyed the End of Marketing Book Review. Enjoy.