The one sentence summary
Copying is to be cherished, and you can do smarter marketing by using other people’s ideas.
WHAT THE BOOK SAYS 
- Copying strategies really work, so you can do smarter marketing by using other people’s ideas.
- Constantly trying to come up with something original can be futile. Instead, look to successes elsewhere and apply them to your issue.
- Tight, ‘single white copying’ (named after the film Single White Female) is no good for innovation because it just repeats slavishly what’s been done before.
- Copying loosely works well and allows for error and variation.
- Good copying seeks to fix broken things, and is productive when you look far away rather than close by.
- This is a workbook to help you make intelligent marketing decisions.
- The method is best understood by using the proposed maps.
- Map 1 plots whether the behavioural choice is informed or uniformed, and whether it is made independently or socially:
- Map 2 identifies the nature of the decision making process in each quadrant:
- Map 3 specifies what type of marketing approach will work best for each quadrant:
- So in total:
Informed + independent = considered choice > Better strategy
Uninformed + independent = guesswork > Salience strategy
Informed + social = copying experts > Expertise strategy
Uninformed + social = copying peers > Popularity strategy
- There is then a pattern book containing 52 suggested strategies to try. These can be copied and tested once the right quadrant is defined for the task.
WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT
- What Kinda Thing? provides an early rangefinder for progress.
- What kind of thing is this?
- What kind of solutions might be appropriate?
- What might that look like?
- This iterative way of investigating strategies is far more fluid and informative than detailed planning, and allows you to move much faster.
WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH
- This is not so much a book that you read end to end. Instead, get the gist of the method, home in on your task, and then use the most appropriate techniques to get a result.