Recently the CEO of a major corporation told me he still likes to refer to the first edition of Marketing Management, published in 1967, a book he used in graduate school. When he asked me to sign his copy, I obliged but told him I would be signing an antique. So much has changed since I first wrote it. Granted it introduced the concept that companies must be customer-and-market driven, but it left out today's marketplace dynamics. There was no mention of segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The Internet did not exist, nor did, for example, debit cards, smart cards, cellular phones, personal digital assistants, hypercompetition, cyberconsumers, customer equity, customer value analysis, customer relationship management, price transparency, value networks, hybrid channels, supply chain management, viral marketing, integrated marketing communication, and mobile marketing.
Even if some people question the existence of a new economy, they need to acknowledge the new elements in today's marketplace. The Internet has multiplied the number of ways consumers buy and companies sell and how companies carry on their businesses. The Internet has increased customer price sensitivity. Cellular phones have enabled people to exchange messages and buy and sell on the go. Companies face competitors from a growing number of countries, who offer lower prices and equal quality for their products and services. We are witnessing a precipitous decline in the effectiveness of mass advertising as a result of the explosion of communication channels. Companies are trying to reduce their sales forces (the most expensive way to sell) by encouraging customers to use lower-cost channels(telephone and online ordering). Store-based retailers, such as small bookstores, music stores, and travel agents, are in a daily struggle against online competitors. All industries are experiencing hypercompetition, dog-eat-dog pricing. Company margins have thinned considerably, and power is clearly shifting to customers, who are increasingly telling companies what product features they want, what communications they will tolerate, what incentives they expect, and what prices they will pay.
In response, companies are shifting gears from managing product portfolios to managing customer portfolios. The focus today is on Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Companies emphasize keeping and growing customers instead of finding new ones. They are compiling databases on individual customers so they can understand them better and construct individualized offerings and messages. They are doing less product and service standardization and more nicking and customization. They are replacing monologues with customer dialogues. They are improving their methods of measuring customer profitability and customer lifetime value. They are intent on measuring the return on their marketing investment and its impact on shareholder value.
Companies have stopped thinking of the Internet as an information channel or a sales channel. The Internet requires a complete rethinking of a company's marketing strategy and the models on which it builds its business. Every company occupies a position in a long value chain connecting customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, and dealers. Today Intranets improve internal communication and Extranets facilitate communicating with partners.
As markets change, so does marketing. Marketing is no longer a company department charged with a limited number of tasks: managing advertising, sending out direct mail, finding sales leads, providing customer service. Marketing must be a company-wide undertaking. It must drive the company's vision, mission, and strategic planning. Marketing is about deciding who the company wants as its customers; which needs to satisfy; what products and services to offer; what prices to set; what communications to send deceive; what channels of distribution to use; and what partnerships to develop.
Marketing deals with the whole process of entering markets, establishing profitable ions, and building loyal customer relationships. This can happen only if all departs work together: engineering designs the right products, finance furnishes the red funds, purchasing buys quality materials, production makes quality products on 4~e, and accounting measures the profitability of different customers, products, and areas.
This Edition
Marketing is of interest to everyone, whether they are marketing goods, services, properties, persons, places, events, information, ideas, or organizations. So the eleventh edition is dedicated to helping companies, groups, and individuals adapt their marketing strategies and management to the new technological and global realities.
This edition emphasizes:
- The Internet and its uses and effects
- Demand chain and supply chain management
- Customer relationship management and partner relationship management
- Alternative go-to-market channels
- Brand building and brand asset management
At the same time, it builds on the fundamental strengths of past editions:
- Managerial Orientation. This book focuses on the major decisions marketing managers and top management face in their efforts to harmonize the organization's objectives, capabilities, and resources with marketplace needs and opportunities.
- Analytical Approach. This book presents a framework for analyzing recurrent problems in marketing management. Cases and examples illustrate effective marketing principles, strategies, and practices.
- Multidisciplinary Perspective. This book draws on the rich findings of various scientific disciplineseconomics, behavioral science, management theory, and mathematics-for fundamental concepts and tools.
- Universal Applications. This book applies marketing thinking to the complete spectrum of marketing: products and services, consumer and business markets, profit and nonprofit organizations, domestic and foreign companies, small and large firms, manufacturing and intermediary businesses, and low- and high-tech industries.
- Comprehensive and Balanced Coverage. This book covers all the topics an informed marketing manager needs to understand to carry out strategic, tactical, and administrative marketing.
Features of the eleventh edition
This edition has been both streamlined and expanded to bring essentials and classic examples into sharper focus while covering new concepts and ideas in depth.
New Topics, New Organization
Chapter 2, "Adapting Marketing to the New Economy," is an entirely new chapter dealing with the impact of the Internet on marketing and consumers. What are the major forces driving the new economy? How is business theory and practice changing as a result? How are marketers using the Internet, customer databases, and customer relationship management? This new chapter focuses on these questions, and examples of online companies and marketing have been added throughout the book. Chapter 19, "Managing Advertising, Sales Promotion, and Public Relations," and Chapter 21, "Managing Direct and On-line Marketing" have been combined because both deal with marketing's communication function.
New Concepts and Ideas
A large number of concepts have been added or explored in greater detail: the new economy, Internet marketing, reverse marketing, experiential marketing, buzz marketing, viral marketing, guerrilla marketing, high-tech product marketing, industry convergence, cyberconsumers, customer relationship management, customization and customerization, customer equity, customer lifetime value, customer share, customer activity cycles, customer value analysis, database marketing and datamining, telemarketing, shareholder value, value chains, brand building, brand asset management, self-service technologies, mobile marketing, gain-and-risk sharing pricing, dynamic pricing, tiered loyalty programs, hybrid channels, demand chains. New published research findings have been added to every topic.
Boxed Features
This edition also has three box series. Marketing Memos, which appear in the margins, present tips and suggestions for managers at all stages of the marketing management process. Marketing Insights highlight current research findings in marketing management. New! Marketing for the New Economy boxes focus on the effects of market and technological changes on marketing and marketing management.
New and updated Marketing Memo boxes focus on such topics as "Succeeding with Electronic Commerce," "A Guide to Generation Y," "Why Developing Hi-Tech Products Is Especially Difficult," "Ten Rules of Radical Marketing," "Questionnaire Do's and Don'ts," "Biotech: Unleashing Unlimited Market Opportunities," "Internet Ethics for Targeting Kids," "Going After Poor Markets around the Globe," "The Ten Commandments of Global Branding," "Buzz Marketing," and "Designing a Customer-Driven Distribution System."
New and updated Marketing Insight boxes include such topics as "Ride the Cluetrain Manifesto," "Using Observational Research," "Tracking Consumer Trends," "Cause Marketing," "Can You Build a Cult Brand," and "Drug Salespeople Rely on New Technology to Reach Doctors."
Marketing for the New Economy boxes include such topics as "M-Commerce," "Snapshots of a Country on the Move," " Customer Service Live and On-Line," "The Network Economy," "Smart Cards," "The Elusive Goal of Branding on the World Wide Web," "Technologies of Customer Empowerment," "Extreme Retailing."
Text Examples and Minicases
In-text examples and minicase and have been replaced, updated, and added to focus on e-commerce companies, uses of the Internet, and service businesses, as well as classic cases. Over 100 new examples of good and bad company marketing practices have been added to supplement or replace older examples. New minicases include PlasticsNet.com, Earthlink.com, GAP, Palm Computing, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Compaq, CEOExpress.com, Abercrombie & Fitch, Selfridges, Heublein, Verizon, IKEA, Cemex, boo.com, and Blue Man Group. Updated minicases include Dell, Saturn, Nike, Wal-Mart, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Kinko's, A&E Network, Snapple, Club Med. Classic minicases such as Swatch, UPS, Absolut vodka, and Kodak have been retained.
End-of-Chapter Exercises
Applications section includes several new types of extremely practical exercises to challenge students:
- New! Marketing Debate in each chapter now features a question asking students to ,take sides on a marketing issue covered in that chapter.
- Marketing and Advertising exercises focus on real companies and include the ads being discussed. They give the student practice in analyzing the marketing objectives advertising is trying to realize.
- New! Online Marketing Today exercises focus on e-business and e-commerce, and send students to the company Web site to complete the assignment.
- You're the Marketer asks students to make a formal marketing plan using the Sonic PDA hypothetical example from Chapter 4. It is linked to the Marketing Plan Pro software and The Marketing Plan: A Handbook, offered as supplements in a value-priced package.