Brinker - Hacking Marketing: Agile Practices to Make Marketing Smarter, Faster, and More Innovative

We've long talked about how marketing success is based on the experience it delivers, and now Scott Brinker lays out a terrific manifesto about how to rethink the operations underlying it. He uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the marketing technology world to nail the parallels between marketing and the emerging practices in software developmentagile, fast, open, iterativeand translates them in practical approaches to driving change in one's own company. Hacking Marketing lays out the implicit principles that have been guiding much of our own work at McKinsey with clients on piloting new marketing operations techniquesstorytelling, scrum masters, product management discipline, and especially relentless A/B testingand makes the logic for doing so incredibly clear. In many ways, Scott is not just talking about hacking marketing, but also addressing the changes to come across most business functions.

David C. Edelman, global co-leader, McKinsey Digital, Marketing and Sales, McKinsey & Company

Hacking Marketing not only creates a compelling model for how to think about the intersection of marketing and our digital world; it helped me rethink the way I approach my role as a CMO. I've asked my entire team to read it.

John L. Kennedy, CMO, Xerox Corporation

Marketing is going through a seismic change. The change is driven by consumers who are no longer passive in their relationship with brands, technology, and data. Hacking Marketing provides a brilliant road map on how to evolve the capability and culture of marketing practices using parallels from the most disruptive industry in the world, the software industry.

Ram Krishnan, SVP and CMO, PepsiCo

No business function today is more dynamic than marketing. Hacking Marketing is a must-read operating manual for CMOs who want to lead in the digital age.

Ajay Agarwal, managing director, Bain Capital Ventures

We are all digital now. Scott makes it easier than ever for smart marketers to ask the right questions and to discover what they need to know now.

SethGodin, author, All Marketers Are Liars

An original take on how the management of marketing must transform to keep pace with our increasingly digital world. It's a must-read for anyone looking to stay relevant in this modern marketing era.

Ann Handley, chief content officer, MarketingProfs

An inspiring read for anyone who wants to master the art and science of modern marketing management, from the practice of lean and agile marketing to the design of a scalable engine for marketing innovation.

Mayur Gupta, SVP and head of Digital, Healthgrades

The CMOs of tomorrow will be very different from the ones of yesterday. Scott shows how great marketing management today is closer to modern software development than the marketing of yesterday and helps marketers understand how to incorporate those principles to succeed.

Rishi Dave, CMO, Dun & Bradstreet

The truth is that marketing has changed, more than almost any other profession, and the majority of marketers have no idea how to effectively manage the process. Hacking Marketing gives you a flashlight and shows you the truth so you never have to look back again.

JoePulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute

I am a strong believer that Agile has to be the foundation of any successful marketing team. Agile will allow marketing executives to have more visibility, increased productivity, and higher profitability. Scott's book provides timely insight into how to make a shift to agile marketing.

Joe Staples, CMO, Workfront

Scott Brinker

Cover design: Paul McCarthy

Copyright 2016 by Scott Brinker. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Brinker, Scott, 1971- author.

Title: Hacking marketing : agile practices to make marketing smarter, faster, and more innovative / Scott Brinker.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015046840 (print) | LCCN 2016002280 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119183174 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119183211 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119183235 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Marketing. | MarketingManagement. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Marketing / General.

Classification: LCC HF5415 .B6675 2016 (print) | LCC HF5415 (ebook) | DDC 658.8dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046840

For Jordan:
Let your imagination always lift you beyond the limits of labels.

And for my parents, who ran a Mad Menera marketing agency and encouraged me to study computer science.

It's a fascinating time to work in marketing.

It's also a somewhat dizzying time, with so much change happening around us.

The world is becoming more digital every day, steadily reshaping relationships between customers and businesses in the process. Buyers have more information, more options, and more leverage in when, where, and how they engage with sellers. And their expectations are rising, as state-of-the-art, digitally native companiesfrom Amazon.com to Uberpush the limits of what is possible into what is desired and then demanded.