Contextual Pricing: The Death of List Price and the New Market Reality

A REVOLUTIONARY NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HOW PRICING REALLY WORKS

“Contextual Pricing delivers a knock-out punch to complacent and low-return pricing approaches. . . . This book is full of intriguing, fresh insights which will expand your perspective on what is possible in maximizing revenue from your company’s products and services.”
—Mark Greatrex, Chief Marketing Officer, Cox Communications, and former SVP, Global Still Beverages, The Coca Cola Company

“To effectively price, managers must understand market context—the frame of reference for buyers. Context is far more important than the usual measures of price variation. I strongly recommend this readable and useful book to any business leader who suspects his or her company is falling short of achievable revenues.”
—Dave Calhoun, Chairman and CEO, Nielsen Company, and former Vice Chairman, General Electric Company

About the Book:

A few leading companies have jettisoned ideas about pricing that other companies believe are indispensible. The result has been superior performance against competitors who persist in a simplistic 1990s belief in “value.”

Contextual Pricing describes how buyers are influenced by comparison points and contextual messages more than by actual price levels. Identical products can sell at radically different prices to the same target customer—if context is strategically managed. This fact is how Procter & Gamble, GE, Coca-Cola Company, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others make sure they get the best possible price. The use of context is changing the way companies price and sell in the new global economy.

This readable and market-tested book describes the contextual pricing perspective, how it is being used in B2B and B2C markets, and how you can make the shift to contextual pricing in your own business. Whether you’re a CEO, P&L manager marketing director, sales manager, or entrepreneur, Contextual Pricing shows you how to:

• Understand how your customer will make buying decisions and the role of pricing in those decisions
• Establish better, more intuitive prices using context
• Develop contextual pricing strategies that defeat competitor pricing—how contextual pricing can be the antidote to destructive price wars
• Harmonize your pricing with branding, product development and channel strategies
• Increase your profits with proven pricing tools, such as scientific bundling, tiering, branding, upsell “hooks” and more

Through its illuminating case-by-case studies, Contextual Pricing delivers a wide range of pricing techniques and customer insights that you won’t find anywhere else. You’ll learn how to avoid common pitfalls when raising or lowering prices and discover how you can compete in traditional or emerging digital marketplaces—and beat the competition through superior tactics, not through lower margins.

When you know the secrets of Contextual Pricing, you can name your price, drive your sales, increase your profits, and own your success.

Robert Docters is the managing partner for Abbey Road, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in pricing strategy. He previously served as a senior vice president of strategy and pricing at LexisNexis, and before that was an SVP at Ernst & Young.
John Hanson is a partner at Accenture, where he leads the North American Pricing and Profit Optimization strategy practice.
Cecilia Nguyen is a senior manager with Accenture’s Pricing and Profit Optimization strategy practice.
Michael Barzelay holds the London School of Economics’ first professorial chair in public management. He codirects the Department of Management’s new MsC Public Management and Governance, and serves as the founding executive director of the Center for Transformation and Strategic Initiatives, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.