The Growth Dilemma
Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things
Annie Wilson author Ryan Hamilton author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Harvard Business Review Press
Publishing:10th Jun '25
£25.00
This title is due to be published on 10th June, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Porsches for soccer moms? Finance bros in Patagonia? Drive-through Starbucks? What happens when your growth strategy creates conflict between customers?
You always want to grow your brand, but there's a dilemma: the more customer segments you target, the harder it becomes to avoid conflict between them. Sometimes attempts to court new customers can feel like a betrayal to your loyal base. Sometimes new customer segments rush to adopt your products and in the process unwittingly alienate your existing customers. And sometimes your growth strategy flies in the face of what your customers have decided your brand means to them.
Brands must navigate these incompatibilities in order to achieve sustainable growth—or face losing more customers than they gain. Marketing experts and professors Annie Wilson and Ryan Hamilton show you how to manage this challenge with a fresh, simple framework for growing without imploding, helping you choose whom to target, how to avoid conflict between segments, and, crucially, what to do when the sensibilities of one segment clash with those of another.
Wilson and Hamilton illustrate their framework with dozens of real-world cases. How did Supreme lose its coveted reputation among skateboarders? How did a software update cost Apple a devoted customer base? What did Gucci do when the cast of Jersey Shore started toting its handbags around? And why are Crocs even a thing?
With depth, clarity, and a bit of humor, Wilson and Hamilton give you a better way to strategically select new target markets and manage multiple customer segments. The Growth Dilemma is your road map to brand growth.
Advance Praise for The Growth Dilemma:
"Wilson and Hamilton have given us a way of getting serious about growing our customer base and our brand. The Growth Dilemma provides a unique perspective on changing the way we see and understand customers. This is an invaluable read when you're in the thick of transforming a brand with history and legacy, and it provides critical insights for growth for any brand size." — Daniella Vitale, CEO, Americas, Ferragamo
"The Growth Dilemma is essential reading for any marketer trying to grow a brand and attract new customer segments. It offers a new perspective on customer segment psychology and management, and a fresh and actionable framework for understanding your brand's customer base and guiding growth strategies." — Jonah Berger, Associate Professor of Marketing, the Wharton School; bestselling author, Contagious and The Catalyst
"Wilson and Hamilton bring fresh, practical insights to a critically important but surprisingly neglected topic—customer segment management. An invaluable addition to any marketer's tool kit, The Growth Dilemma offers comprehensive, actionable advice to help marketers maximize synergies and minimize conflicts across their customer base." — Kevin Lane Keller, E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College; coauthor, Marketing Management and Strategic Brand Management
"The Growth Dilemma redefines marketing with a fresh, consumer-centric model, encouraging us to think more deeply about the role our brands play in people's lives. Packed with memorable examples and unexpected humor, it's a rare business book that's genuinely enjoyable to read." — Charlotte Blank, Chief Marketing Officer, USA, Jaguar Land Rover North America
"The Growth Dilemma is a comprehensive manual for assessing growth opportunities and teaching the dos and don'ts of creating growth strategies. It's filled with both classic and contemporary examples and just the right amount of snark to keep you entertained. This book is a welcome addition to marketing courses for undergrads, MBAs, and executives." — Patti Williams, Vice Dean of Executive Education, the Wharton School
ISBN: 9781647829735
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages