Niche: Why the Market No Longer Favours the Mainstream

by James Harkin

There is a new rule in don't aim for the middle market - unless you're cheaper than cheap, you're going to fail. Instead, find a Niche and reap the rewards. Woolworths suffered from a lack of identity and found that low quality and low price wasn't enough; General Motors crashed as motorists failed to distinguish between cars in their range. Yet HBO, Moleskine and specialist media like The Economist have all concentrated on being the best they can be - and customers have flocked to them as a result. For sixty years, our cultural consumption has been controlled by the giants of the mass market. But thanks to the recession they have become weak and defensive, and are now in a desperate fight for their lives. From this new cultural terrain the niche has evolved to become the place where innovation flourishes and sales take off. From the author of CYBURBIA comes a superb examination of the growing proportion of economic, political and cultural activity aimed not at the mainstream audience but at tightly defined but globally scattered niches, bound together by the power of the net.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Society

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Mariano · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's evident this book was written by an academic ... it's a good window into the past and how the whole movement around niches developed, however, doesn't give you enough good advice and is stale ate some points ...

[Yuan · Rating 3 out of 5]

書中舉的例子值得閱讀，但觀點並無太多令人驚喜之處，畢竟原書出版於2011，距今也7年前了，這部分倒是顯示作者在社會觀察方面頗具洞見，可學習他撰寫的筆法和結構。

[YHC · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of Gap, Wolfworth, movie business ( Gone with the Wind) and Penguin publisher, Maxwell coffee, Tesco, Starbucks, independent movies to home movie development(american series),
The rise and fall of the middle market that targeting on popular taste and try to please all but eventually lost all. This reminds me of the long tail theory. The 80/20, this 20 % is actually growing in a way that some companies know well to targeting to find places/ profits inside of this small part of cake.
The appearance of internet, social media also accelerate the fall of mainstream market, such as newspapers and song recordings.
Targeting smaller groups of audience, you attract the real audience.
In the book, the author explained how Obama won the election of 2008, from an unknown candidate (compared to Hilary ) to win the president of 2008: Small group power and big data also helped.
Knowing that people want to be special and individual, don't like to be consider following the trends, this contributes the smaller or marginal markets to strengthen.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't get through chapter 3 since James Harkin simply doesn't get to the point.

[Adam Underhill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as I thought it would be. Read the introduction and you have most of what this book is saying

[Samira · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a lot of books about branding out there. This stands out for its smooth eloquence and intelligent, witty analysis. A terrific book about modern culture.