Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking
Author: Andy Sernovitz
Make People Talk
With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world’s most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth.
Ever wonder why everyone is talking about a certain restaurant, car, band, or dry cleaner—and why other businesses and products are ignored? Discover why some products become huge successes without a penny of promotion—and why some multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns fail to get noticed.
New interesting textbook: The Art of Darkwatch or Internet Research Skills
Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine
Author: Marion Nestl
Marion Nestle, acclaimed author of Food Politics, now tells the gripping story of how, in early 2007, a few telephone calls about sick cats set off the largest recall of consumer products in U.S. history and an international crisis over the safety of imported goods ranging from food to toothpaste, tires, and toys. Nestle follows the trail of tainted pet food ingredients back to their source in China and along the supply chain to their introduction into feed for pigs, chickens, and fish in the United States, Canada, and other countries throughout the world. What begins as a problem "merely" for cats and dogs soon becomes an issue of tremendous concern to everyone. Nestle uncovers unexpected connections among the food supplies for pets, farm animals, and people and identifies glaring gaps in the global oversight of food safety.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.
For author and public health professor Nestle (Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health), the March 2007 pet food recall was the canary in the coal mine that would lead to a blitz of questions regarding the safety of imported food and goods. Begging comparison with Sinclair's The Jungle, Nestle begins with a real-life whodunit, tracing an outbreak of kidney failure deaths among cats and then dogs. A major pet food manufacturer had recently switched wheat gluten suppliers, paying 20 to 30 percent less to a broker importing from China (natch). Soon, it's revealed that two Chinese suppliers were passing off cheaper, toxic additives as gluten. As Nestle demonstrates, it's the tip of the iceberg; unraveling the links among "food safety, health policy, international trade, and the relationship of corporations to government," Nestle examines continuing food scandals, as well as the Chinese toy scare. Nestle finds most fault with the FDA; "still operating under food and drug laws passed in 1906 and modified in 1938," it's a systematically underfunded organization with an ever-increasing mandate and ever-shrinking powers of oversight. Though informative, this quick, clarifying read might easily make you sick to your stomach.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1
1 A Recall to Break All Records 9
2 A Brief Historical Digression 15
3 The Sequence of Events 27
4 What Is Menu Foods? 42
5 Menu's Muddled Response: What, When, and Where 50
6 The Cat and Dog Body Count 55
7 A Toxic False Alarm: Aminopterin 61
8 At Last the Culprit: Melamine 63
9 Melamine: A Source of Dietary Nitrogen 69
10 Melamine: A Fraudulent Adulterant, But Puzzling 77
11 How Much Melamine Was in the Pet Food? 81
12 Mystery Solved: Cyanuric Acid 83
13 The China Connection 88
14 More Melamine: Rice and Corn "Proteins" 97
15 More Melamine Eaters: Farm Animals and People 105
16 The FDA's Response 114
17 Repercussion #1: China's Food Safety System 123
18 Repercussion #2: The China Backlash 133
19 Repercussion #3: The FDA in Crisis 143
20 Repercussion #4: Pet Food Politics 156
App The Melamine Recalls List 175
Notes 181
List of Tables and Figures 205
Acknowledgments 207
Index 209
