Creating Relevance in a Time of Uncertainty

Marketing, when you boil it all down, deals with just two things: figuring out who you want to sell to and then determining how you are going to get them to buy your product, service, or idea. In Relevance: The Power to Change Minds and Behavior and Stay Ahead of the Competition, Andrea Coville, who heads a global marketing and public relations agency, successfully showed us how to get today's busy, distracted consumers to buy. Booklist called Relevance "a thought-provoking guide to success in today's noisy communications world." Here, in her follow-up work, Coville's focus is on helping you create Relevance in our current moment of uncertainty caused by the pandemic, social unrest, and ever-increasing technological change. She lays out, in step-by-step fashion, what you need to do and how to do it. And Coville also provides numerous case studies—profiling large global companies, smaller firms, nonprofits, and universities—who have created Relevance successfully. It has never been more difficult to get people to listen to what you have to say. Coville explains why you have to create deep, lasting, and mutually satisfying relationships with the people who keep you in business—and then she shows you how to do it. By the time you are done reading, you will have a series of strategies that have been proven to work when it comes to changing minds and behavior, strategies that will help you stay ahead of the competition.

Marketing, when you boil it all down, deals with just two things: figuring out who you want to sell to and then determining how you are going to get them to buy your product, service, or idea. In Relevance: The Power to Change Minds and Behavior and Stay Ahead of the Competition, Andrea Coville, who heads a global marketing and public relations agency, successfully showed us how to get today's busy, distracted consumers to buy. Booklist called Relevance "a thought-provoking guide to success in today's noisy communications world." Here, in her follow-up work, Coville's focus is on helping you create Relevance in our current moment of uncertainty caused by the pandemic, social unrest, and ever-increasing technological change. She lays out, in step-by-step fashion, what you need to do and how to do it. And Coville also provides numerous case studies—profiling large global companies, smaller firms, nonprofits, and universities—who have created Relevance successfully. It has never been more difficult to get people to listen to what you have to say. Coville explains why you have to create deep, lasting, and mutually satisfying relationships with the people who keep you in business—and then she shows you how to do it. By the time you are done reading, you will have a series of strategies that have been proven to work when it comes to changing minds and behavior, strategies that will help you stay ahead of the competition. You will also be able to craft an effective marketing strategy that will allow your message to reach today's busy, distracted customers (a description that fits just about everyone you are trying to reach). As Richard Cote, executive director for Advancement at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, correctly points out: "Whether you work for an Ivy League college, a nonprofit organization, or a for-profit enterprise, there is one common thread and path to success: people relationships. That means understanding the needs, the hopes, the aspirations of people and making those come alive in the services and products you represent. Andy's book on Relevance nails this point crisply. You can have the best offering in the world, highly designed and expertly targeted, but without a real, relevant connection to people, it will go nowhere. Her book provides a step-by-step program on not only building relevance to your audiences or customers but sustaining and expanding it. The book, Creating Relevance in a Time of Uncertainty, provides both the diagnosis and the prescription with well-articulated cases and proven methodology. It's a must-read for leaders who seek the people-centered 'secret sauce' that differentiates your organization or enterprise and propels it forward in the midst of tough competition and global economic and pandemic headwinds."

Andrea "Andy" Coville is CEO of Brodeur Partners, one of the world's top mid-sized communications agencies. In a quest to bring more science and sensory-based insight to the creative process, she developed and refined the concept of relevance, a strategic platform for helping organizations and their brands go beyond the "buzz" and link communications to behavioral change. For 30 years, she has executed high-performing relevance campaigns for organizations in the business-to-business, consumer products, and healthcare markets. Her agency's extensive client roster has included the American Cancer Society, IBM, Mastercard, Corning, Philips, BlackBerry, Bio, Vertex, 3M, Dartmouth College, Fidelity Investments, Hankook Tire, and AMOREPACIFIC. After joining Brodeur in 1986 and becoming CEO in 1999, Andy diversified Brodeur Partners from a public relations firm specializing in technology to a multidisciplinary communications agency focusing on full-service communications, digital strategies, social change, and business consulting. During that process, she oversaw the acquisition of companies that expanded the agency's portfolio in diversity and inclusion, social purpose, digital and video, paid social, and branding. Andy has a bachelor's degree in journalism and English literature from the University of New Hampshire. She is married to John Brodeur (co-founder of Brodeur Partners), is a mother of four, and has a passion for nonprofits and social issues that advance the well-being of children. She serves on several nonprofit boards and is an avid running and outdoor sports enthusiast.