Marketing Mixology: Ambi Parameswaran's book on the ideal cocktail

Business Standard

10-06-2025

Marketing Mixology: Four Essential Ingredients for Marketing Success
Published by Westland
172 pages ₹350
In a business-reading landscape awash with jargon-laden tomes and MBA-speak, Marketing Mixology: Four Essential Ingredients for Marketing Success is refreshingly unpretentious. The author, Ambi Parameswaran, a veteran marketer whose career straddles consumer staples, pharmaceuticals and tech, has produced a guide that feels more like a hands-on workshop than an exposition in a lecture hall. He does not march the reader through the usual catechism of STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning). Instead, each chapter opens with a problem drawn from the industry trenches and closes with a practical tool you could carry straight into Monday's team huddle.
Almost every concept in the book is introduced with a relatable case that will imprint on the reader's mind the concept to be grasped. Each idea is anchored by a real-world situation: A bungled launch, an unexplored opportunity, an over-engineered presentation, a tone-deaf e-mail. This approach keeps the reader honest; you cannot skim a page without confronting a familiar real-life situation. By comparing steps to understand consumers taken by a range of organisations — from large fast-moving consumer goods companies to direct-to-consumer startups — the author illustrates how the same insight, cast in a different light, can transform a strategy from myopic to breakthrough.
This makes it a good read for everyone. The book is a useful and absorbing read whether you are a recent graduate, a mid-career professional or a business leader. For a rookie graduate, the book will provide foundational knowledge with contemporary insights for a digital First World. For a mid-career professional looking to transition from tactical execution to strategic leadership, this book can address the competency gaps that emerge at this stage of a career. For business leaders, this mixology will be an essential toolkit to make informed strategic decisions even if marketing isn't their primary area of expertise.
In fact, for practicing professionals, Mixology is an excellent refresher on branding. In a world where 'performance' marketers are often given sales targets, this book is a reality check. The section on myths about branding is especially relevant for new age startups and entrepreneurs. The author impresses upon the reader the importance of branding but goes one step further. He lays down a road map on the steps to master branding right from brand appraisal to brand expansion. As we go through the chapter, you realise that branding need not be a substitute but should complement all the digital spends that brands are doing almost like clockwork these days. The quote ,'If you can't measure it, you can't manage it', may not be found in many branding books, but Marketing Mixology explains it with elan.
Another feature of this book is the number of pages. At less than 200 pages, this mixology can be drained in a few sittings. This book is not a tome, yet it does a wonderful job of fulfilling readers' needs. You can read this in four sittings of 30 to 45 minutes just before you sleep, or even on a Delhi-Mumbai flight. The chapters on customers and branding are fast-paced and you will find that you revisit these often at work or even at a B-school.
For me, the highlight of the book was the section on sales and negotiation. We are entering an era where every marketer is part of sales conversations and vice-versa. Common sales techniques have been 'reframed' in a fun way — in this case the explanation on how a mother could cut slices of pizza among siblings is an apt example.
So what might you miss in the book? To start with, this is not the book for optimising your 'click throughs' or for lowering your 'cost per lead' — not in the short term, at least. This book has many digital era connotations, but in the larger context of 2025 marketing, these are cameos, not starring roles. But the book does a great job of doing what it proposes, which is to talk about the 'four essential ingredients of marketing success'.
For those new to marketing or from a non-marketing background, I would recommend this book as their first read on the subject. It's a gateway to the world of marketing that isn't intimidating but fun. Kudos to the author and the publisher for keeping it uncomplicated.