在线阅读本书

According to advertising legend Phil Dusenberry, business ideas may or may not be valuable, but true insights are much rarer than ideas and much more precious. A good idea can inspire one commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials. An insight gives you an entirely new way of thinking about your business.

Consider just a few of the breakthrough insights that Dusenberry’s agency, BBDO, has offered their clients over the years: That General Electric’s unifying tagline should be “We bring good things to life.” That Pepsi should be targeting the “Pepsi Generation.” That Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection theme should be “Morning in America.” That Visa should compare itself with American Express, not MasterCard. Talk about moving the needle!

Dusenberry argues that these brainstorms don’t come out of thin air, even at a world class organization like BBDO. They are actually the result of a rigorous and disciplined process of insight generation, one that any manager in any type of business can adopt. Dusenberry explains this process—Research, Analysis, Insight, Strategy, and Execution (RAISE)—in plain English. And he offers examples of some of the greatest business insights of our time, from the birth of Federal Express to the positioning of HBO.

Moving the Needle will help businesspeople get to the heart of their toughest problems.