Power of Belonging

The book is rich with useful information both for marketing professionalsand for people who are simply interested in how marketing works. In thatregard, Baaghil provides a useful overview of everything you need to knowabout marketing, which for Baaghil means finding a way to invite your audience tobelong to the brand, and vice versa. Budding entrepreneurs in the early stages of founding a business would beparticularly well-served to read Baaghils advice concerning brands, since he makes apassionate argument that branding starts at the business conception stage. Businessowners who dont think about their brands from the beginning, says Baaghil, arestill building a brand perceptiontheyre just building an unplanned, wild brandperception. By the time the new entrepreneur is ready to release a product, if he orshe is thinking of branding merely as colors and a logo, it may be too late. One of the most interesting and useful parts of the book is Baaghils ongoingengagement with the problems of business and marketing specifically with regard tothe Middle East and the developing world. He speaks warmly yet firmly to MiddleEastern CEOs, providing them with needful advice that comes from his clear visionof how far there is to go, but more importantly, how great the possibilities are forbusiness and culture in the region. For the past twenty years of my life I have striven to excel in a field I passionatelylovemarketing. From my days at the University of Maine pursuing my marketingdegree until today my life has been marketing. My early experience in the professiondates back to 1990, when I joined a reputable company, Edison Brothers, basedout of St Louis, Missouri. Now I have risen from an employee to a self-employedentrepreneur who has created numerous companies for himself and others. Myexperience speaks for itselfthrough my marketing work, the books Ive authored,and my consultancies.