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SURVIVE TO THRIVE:
Sustaining Yourself, Your Brand,
and Your Business from Recession to Recovery
By Philip H. Geier, Jr.
Before there
was the hit TV show “Mad Men,” before Coca Cola was ‘the real
thing,’ before branding became a marketing buzzword, there was
Phil “Deals” Geier. The story of how this visionary, who
created the modern advertising holding company and brought The
Interpublic Group from $500 million to $5.6 billion in revenues,
is shared for the first time in
SURVIVE TO THRIVE:
Sustaining Yourself, Your Brand, and Your Business from
Recession to Recovery.
In addition
to sound business wisdom, SURVIVE TO THRIVE reveals an
insider’s take on the glamorous real world of 1960s and 70s
advertising and features a veritable “who’s who” of mid-20th
century luminaries.
Part business
bible, part advertising history and part personal memoir, Geier
tells all and doesn’t flinch as he recounts his career, pointing
out mistakes as well as triumphs and sharing the takeaway
lessons that led to his success and that of many others on both
the agency and client side. As the man who created the
blueprint of the global network, Geier was named Chairman and
CEO of Interpublic, the parent company of his original firm of
McCann-Erickson, by the time he was 45. During his 20 years as
Chairman of the company, Interpublic stock experienced a
compound growth of 22 percent.
Geier’s saga
of the advertising industry’s evolution to meet the challenges
of modern globalization provides some deep insight into dealing
with change, revealing how his relentless focus on the client’s
concerns changed the model of the effective account person.
“To succeed
in business,” he writes, “you need to be able to use your own
personal strengths in a wide variety of situations. You need to
be able to listen as well as to make yourself heard. You need to
earn people’s trust. You need to be able to make the right
impression on people in a way that is always true to yourself.”
At the core, Geier says “success is all about people.”
About Phil Geier:
Throughout
the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, Geier and his Interpublic colleagues
worked with clients ranging from Coca-Cola and Exxon to GM,
L’Oreal and Nestle through a fast-changing world. In his 20
years as CEO, Geier grew Interpublic from revenues of $500
million and 8,000 employees to a truly global enterprise with
650 offices in 127 countries, revenues of $5.6 billion and
50,000 employees, making Interpublic the world’s #1 agency
holding company for many years. He is currently Chairman of The
Geier Group, a New York-based marketing communications and
venture capital firm that works with Lazard, small businesses
and entrepreneurs. Geier serves as director on the boards of
five non-profit and charitable organizations including Save the
Children, Autism Speaks and Memorial Sloan Kettering. He also
served as a Chairman of the Ad Council and was inducted into the
Advertising Hall of Fame in 2004.
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SURVIVE TO THRIVE:
Sustaining Yourself, Your
Brand, and Your Business from Recession to Recovery
By Philip H. Geier Jr.
December 1, 2009
ISBN: 1-4392-4129-5
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