Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't
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Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Kevin Maney (Author), Dennis Holland (Narrator), Audible Studios (Publisher)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 47 ratings
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Why did the RAZR ultimately ruin Motorola? Why does Wal-Mart dominate rural and suburban areas but falter in large cities? Why did Starbucks stumble just when it seemed unstoppable? The answer lies in the ever-present tension between fidelity (the quality of a consumers experience) and convenience (the ease of getting and paying for a product).

In Trade-Off, Kevin Maney shows how these conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. He shows that almost every decision we make as consumers involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience between the products we love and the products we need.

Rock stars sell out concerts because the experience is high in fidelity - it cant be replicated in any other way, and because of that, we are willing to suffer inconvenience for the experience. In contrast, a downloaded MP3 of a song is low in fidelity, but consumers buy music online because its super convenient.

Products that are at one extreme or the other - those that are high in fidelity or high in convenience - tend to be successful. The things that fall into the middle-products or services that have moderate fidelity and convenience fail to win an enthusiastic audience.

Using examples from Amazon and Disney to People Express and the invention of the ATM, Maney demonstrates that the most successful companies skew their offerings to either one extreme or the other - fidelity or convenience -i n shaping products and building brands.

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  1. Listening Length
    6 hours and 58 minutes
  2. Author
    Kevin Maney
  3. Narrator
    Dennis Holland
  4. Audible release date
    November 19, 2009
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Audible Studios
  7. ASIN
    B002XWUP9E
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 6 hours and 58 minutes
Author Kevin Maney
Narrator Dennis Holland
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date November 19, 2009
Publisher Audible Studios
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B002XWUP9E
Best Sellers Rank #238,054 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#46 in Industrial Engineering (Audible Books & Originals)
#999 in Marketing (Audible Books & Originals)
#2,143 in Strategic Business Planning

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
47 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Gary B. Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2010
Verified Purchase
Tiffany's Sells Swatches! Extremely unlikely, given there pull-back on $100 Charms because they recognized the trade-off they were making in serving that Customer verses serving the Elite Quality Oriented Customer, that they built their reputation on, according to Best Selling Author Kevin Maney in his recent book Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On And Others Don't (Random House) Forward by Jim Collins.

In his book he explains how organizations who excel, inherently understand this trade-off. His book will help you get crystal clear about the Trade-off that you need to make if your going to compete in the market place and have your product or service catch on. He gives examples of both those who never made the trade off and shrank into oblivion. And those who made the brake-out that most organizational leaders envision. This book is not an academic tomb, it is alive with wonderful examples that remain with you long after you put it on your bookshelf or archive it on your Kindle.

One of the examples he provides in fact is of the development of Kindle. I marvel at the richness of his social network and how it elevates the details and understanding that he draws from these relationships. It provides credibility and insight that many books miss.

Business books often over do it just to fill pages, where you likely will feel diminishing value after the first three chapters. Not this one of them, Kevin keeps it interesting from the first page to the last or from the first click to the last. I read all his reviews on kindle and I thought I would give him a chance to respond to those critics (not that there were many critics) in an upcoming interview on Just Ask Leadership's Blog.

Many academics give you a list of what to do, Kevin gives you a mental model that will help you think about your business and the Trade-off the market is wanting you to make to get your products or services to catch on. What is that Trade-off for your organization?

Interview with Kevin Maney Author of Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On And Others Don't - can be found on my blog Just Ask Leadership (can't post links so you will have to google it.)

 Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't
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Rod King, PhD
5.0 out of 5 stars Developing Competitive Strategies and Tactics for Hit Products/Services
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2009
Verified Purchase
Of all books that I've read on why products succeed or fail, Kevin Maney's new book - "Trade-Off" - presents the most cogent approach. Maney's focus on the concept of trade-off puts customer experience at the center of his conceptual framework and analysis of Fidelity vs. Convenience for products and services. Maney argues that, when developing products or services, it may be prudent for a business to focus on either high fidelity or high convenience but not both, i.e., high fidelity as well as high convenience. Although customers ideally want products with high fidelity and high convenience, they are willing to accept trade-offs involving 'good enough' fidelity and high convenience on the one hand and high fidelity and high inconvenience (including high price) on the other hand. This insight alone could save startup businesses and venture capitalists a lot of money and heartache. Achieving high fidelity and high convenience such as in a Blue Ocean Strategy is possible but highly risky. In fact, Maney refers to such an approach as chasing the Fidelity Mirage.

Ambitious startups, product developers, and venture capitalists should be strongly aware of the Fidelity Mirage. Otherwise, in pursuing the Fidelity Mirage, a business may end up in what Maney calls the "Fidelity Belly," a space where products and services struggle or flop.

Throughout the Trade-Off book, Maney provides numerous examples of products, services, and businesses that illustrate his core theory about the need for pursuing high convenience or high fidelity; high convenience may be a more attractive option for small and medium-scale businesses.

I found Maney's book to be an insightful and entertaining read. If your focus is on improving customer experience in order to obtain 'hit' products and services, the Trade-Off book provides a rich language and robust Fidelity/Convenience framework for developing effective competitive strategies and tactics. I therefore have no hesitation in highly recommending Kevin Maney's "Trade-Off."

Best,
Rod King.

[...]
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Timohty James Ernst
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book. Only necessary to read half.
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2012
Verified Purchase
** spoiler alert ** Kevin Maney’s Trade-off is about the constant exchange of fidelity and convenience. The concept Maney lays out is insightful when loosely applied, but doesn’t hold up under a lot of scrutiny. Maney argues that the trade off between convenience, price + availability, and fidelity, aura+identity+experience, is a zero-sum trade. You can’t have more convenience without getting less fidelity and vice versa. Maney warns against chasing something he calls the fidelity mirage, which is both high fidelity and high convenience, but both are measured relative to the nearest competitor , which means achieving the fidelity mirage only adjusts the baseline for comparison. Google seems to be high fidelity and high convenience. It’s free, it’s on every internet enabled computer and my phone, while at the same time being much higher fidelity than other search engines. Is Google a fidelity mirage, or is there a flaw in how fidelity and convenience are being measured?

Possibly, I’m being too critical. Trade-off provides a useful framework for how to position a product or a brand, some clues into the long-term viability of a company, and even a little enlightenment into experiences and products around us.

Kevin Maney’s writing style is neat and clear. He does a great job of explaining a complex topic in a way that doesn’t make it seem overwhelming. Overall this a good book and well worth my time, but I don’t think it’s my first recommendation to anyone.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Fábio
5.0 out of 5 stars Trade off
Reviewed in Spain on March 18, 2024
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cesar carneiro penna
5.0 out of 5 stars Uma mistura de marketing com estratégia fundamentada em um modelo bem prático
Reviewed in Brazil on September 14, 2017
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O autor nos ensina a enquadrar os negócios em duas categorias Conveniência ou Fidelidade.

Conveniencia significa: barato, perto, fácil de usar, facil de conseguir o que deseja, familiar/habitual.

Fidelidade significa: Completo, de alto valor agregado, que tenha alto status, aura, fiél, alta qualidade.

Maney nos ensina que devemos focar em destacar em apenas um dos dois caminhos. Para isso é preciso entender quem são os concorrentes e alguns detalhes da estratégia. O que extamente define um mercado? Exemplo: Canal de jornal impresso vs jornal digital compõem apena um ou dois mercados? Quem são os concorrentes em cada extremo do espectro? O que é bom o suficiente para o aspecto não escolhido do espectro? Como a evolução tecnológica aument o nível de exigência?

Diferentes segmentos enxergam o tradeoff de diferentes maneiras: Novidades possuem aura para early adopters por exemplo.

Sempre comece pequeno, defina seu foco e trabalhe para sair do fidelity belly, que é a região em que você não se destaca nem pela fidelidade nem pela conveniência.
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AK
2.0 out of 5 stars Average - another terminology for the differentiation / cost leadership trade-off
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2009
Verified Purchase
While the book was recommended, I felt it fell significantly short of expectations. In effect it was a very average management book, without a particularly novel or insightful approach.

The author based the book around the basic principle that a company's products need to be either loved or needed, or as the author puts it - high fidelity or high convenience. The concept is not wrong per se, or harmful but it also provides no new insight. One could argue the author basically just paraphrased Porter's differentiation / cost leadership matrix and the book unfortunately moves this no further.

On top of that the execution is often poor. The same examples are repeated too often for such a compact volume, giving the impression that a book with 50 pages worth of content needed to be stretched to a more marketable 200. On top of that some examples (Tesla for instance) are chosen by someone with extremely superficial understanding of the industry, thereby the description is largely inaccurate and based more on marketing materials of the companies involved than on proper analysis.

If one really does not want to think too thoroughly about the management reading one does, Malcolm Gladwell (for instance  Outliers: The Story of Success  or  The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference ) will provide the goods in a much more polished form than Maney; if one is looking for more profound and timeless insight, the more classical management writers such as Drucker, Ackoff, etc. will provide it much better.
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