THE 86% SOLUTION By Vijay Mahajan/ Kamini Banga Pearson Power PP: 224 Price: Rs 499

Developed markets, which constitute 14 per cent of the world's population, are not growing because these are more than saturated and are also ageing fast. So, growth is going to come from hitherto unappealing developing markets. These markets house 86 per cent of the world's total population with a per capita gross national product of less than $10,000 and per capita incomes of around $300. These markets represent the future of global commerce and can solve one of the most pressing problems of today's marketers, namely sustaining growth. This is the gist of the first part of the book The 86% Solution, co-authored by Vijay Mahajan, who holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at McCombs School of Business, University of Texas, and Kamini Banga, an independent marketing consultant.

All this is too familiar to hold one's interest. That India and China, the fastest growing markets in the world, are extremely intricate to crack is no revelation to any marketer in today's time and date. Haven't Unilever and P&G already explored these markets, made their mistakes and learnt the lessons? Even niche marketers like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Rolls Royce have identified their consumers here and are in the process of figuring out the ways and means to reach out to them. So saying that "there is no Indian market. There is a market in Mumbai or Chennai, or in their local neighbourhoods" is actually stating the obvious.

The second part of the book is, however, interesting. Here, the authors spell out the specific challenges in these markets and then, talk about the 86% solution to these challenges. Mahajan and Banga delve into each aspect of the business life cycle, right from inception to product design, packaging, pricing, distribution to communication and advise marketers, with ample examples, on how they shouldn't build a car when they need a bullock cart or how to connect brands to the markets or how to grow big by thinking small and how to use expatriates to enter a new market. The conclusion they reach is: Population equals profits. "...Numbers are on the side of the developing world...the companies that can develop the right solution to meet their needs will find a rich source of growth...," the authors say.

The book will be insightful for those who haven't yet woken up to the realities of the emerging markets and who still need to figure out India and China on the world map.

BRAND HIJACK By Alex Wipperfurth Penguin Portfolio PP: 280 Price: Rs 595

If stealth weren't such an insidious word, Wipperfurth would probably have called his book Stealth Marketing and not Brand Hijack. For, the subject of his book is, as the subtitle says, "marketing without marketing". To be sure, Brand Hijack is not really about stealth marketing. Rather, it's about how marketers should, first, create a brand that consumers would want to adopt as their own, and then let them control its future. Wipperfurth's opening examples are the brands (Napster, Dr. Martens and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer) his own San Francisco-based consulting firm Plan B works with. He describes how these three, very diverse, brands have willingly become putty in the hands of their customers. Romantic as the notion is, nothing really happens accidentally. What the consumers see as a phenomenal "non-marketing" success (remember the movie The Blair Witch Project?) is actually the result of painstaking, and often expensive, marketing. Therefore, despite its alluring title, the book is about how to engage the consumers; get them interested in your brand as if it were theirs. Isn't that every marketer's ultimate dream?