Kotler on Marketing : How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets

Rating:
Summary: Good review book for marketing practitioners
Review: Kotler's new book lives up to his reputation and the quality of his previous titles. Chapters 8 & 9 are particularly interesting, especially his responses to FAQs in his seminars. Reading the book however feels like sitting through his three-day seminar compressed into one hour. The book might have been better written had it provided more details. Unlike his earlier works, he does not have too many breakthrough ideas nor research support. Still, for any marketing practitioner who wants a refresher course, the book is easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Macro World of Marketing--Truly "How To"
Review: Managing changing needs and desires! Kotler summarizes this field which is wide and becoming wider. In cogent, succint style, this book takes the marketing executive, student or executive who has to deal with marketers through where the field has been, where it is today and where it is heading.'

This is well done. Examples from real world are included (not much hypothetical, classroom or research stuff included) with great questions to ask yourself at the end of each chapter to probe deeper into the topic. Additional references are provided for those who wish to utitlize the concept further.

I find Kotler very easy to read and follow. The approach here presented is right on! There is a warehouse of great lines that can propel one's marketing, e.g. "If companies focus only on their costs, they will never grow to greatness. Without a top line, there will be no bottom line." or "The way to beat your competitors is to attack yourself first." "Finally, customers don't want promotion; they want two-way communication."

This is a gem of a book to mine for info or to put into practice. Likely those not familiar at all with the field will gain much from reading, while those engaged will find this work extremely practical, productive, clarifying and motivating. Not only does he point out trends and weaknesses and opportunities, but in most cases, provides real practitioners and examples, plus optional opportunities.

Rating:
Summary: Macro World of Marketing--Truly "How To"
Review: Managing changing needs and desires! Kotler summarizes this field which is wide and becoming wider. In cogent, succint style, this book takes the marketing executive, student or executive who has to deal with marketers through where the field has been, where it is today and where it is heading.'

This is well done. Examples from real world are included (not much hypothetical, classroom or research stuff included) with great questions to ask yourself at the end of each chapter to probe deeper into the topic. Additional references are provided for those who wish to utitlize the concept further.

I find Kotler very easy to read and follow. The approach here presented is right on! There is a warehouse of great lines that can propel one's marketing, e.g. "If companies focus only on their costs, they will never grow to greatness. Without a top line, there will be no bottom line." or "The way to beat your competitors is to attack yourself first." "Finally, customers don't want promotion; they want two-way communication."

This is a gem of a book to mine for info or to put into practice. Likely those not familiar at all with the field will gain much from reading, while those engaged will find this work extremely practical, productive, clarifying and motivating. Not only does he point out trends and weaknesses and opportunities, but in most cases, provides real practitioners and examples, plus optional opportunities.

Rating:
Summary: A marketing primer for crossing the millennium
Review: People like to listen to 'consultants' rather than a brand managers, gurus, rather than salesmen. Every industry -from detergent manufacturers to church groups-weary of the same knowledge that has percolated through the trade press, is looking for the new age thinker to lead it to the promised land. So it's easy to dismiss the older generals, in favor of younger techno-savvy warriors. Since Philip Kotler has been in Marketing since the time Bill Gates was in diapers, does that make him outdated? What could he have to say in a business climate that's obsessed with applying technology to every stage of the management and marketing process?

Prepare for a 'new, improved' Marketing. If you have an early version of Kotler already installed, this is upgrade to die for. While it crystallizes those eternal principles you may have learned in Principles of Marketing (segmentation, positioning and pricing strategy), it also updates the status of the 4 Ps in today's information-rich universe. 'Marketing objects', as we know them, are much more than products and services, says Kotler. Thus the 'marketplace of ideas' is no more about increasing demand. It is about 'exchange'. FedEx exchanges overnight delivery for a different price than, say the Post Office. Evian can sell bottled water at 0.25 cents an ounce, but also a cartridge of the same 'idea' as a moisturizer for sixty times more. Kotler shows us how context can determine a value proposition that can change rapidly; and how marketers must prepare to meet these disruptions. Information management is key, he tells us, and shows us why mining the marketplace can include anything from studying lifestyles (via 'PRIZM clusters') to trend analysis (a la' Faith Popcorn), to the Web. Closing appropriately with a breathtaking chapter on E-commerce ("Adapting to the New Age of Electronic Marketing"), this is a handbook that ought to appeal to managers anxious about the equivalent of an Amazon.com or a Priceline.com stalking their territory.

You can either look at this book as Kotler's summary of Marketing at the close of the century, or a prognosis of how it might be as we dip our toes into the raging waters of the next millennium. If I was a CEO, I'll give it to all my managers when handing out their bonus checks.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: Philip Kotler draws on lectures he's given worldwide and textbook basics to craft an informative and refreshing marketing text. Highlighting the primary tools and techniques used by marketing professionals, he encourages companies to adopt a holistic approach that emphasizes customer value over product sales. Since it's cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one, companies should use all of the resources at their disposal - including marketing - in building long-term customer relationships. Beyond the customer-value sermon, Kotler offers a systemic review of fundamental marketing concepts that we [...] heartily recommend to beginners, who quickly will find their copies of this book glowing with highlighter yellow, as well as marketing veterans, who will enjoy and learn from the book's fresh take on familiar topics.

Rating:
Summary: Philosophy, psychology, psience and the pfuture
Review: Philosophy, psychology, psience and the pfuture Kotler on Marketing, by Philip Kotler

Future prosperity, we are told, revolves around generating demand and not around cutting costs. For this reason, marketing is perhaps the primary challenge of any good management team.

The marketing executive is routinely expected to target a market, position a product, match features to benefits, select channels, and establish the pricing policy. In addition he or she allocates and primes the sales force, manages the brand, and manages category profitability. Indeed, it has been said, that the best training for a future marketing director is a short spell as CEO.

Professor Kotler is often regarded the world's foremost marketing authority. He has been writing textbooks over four decades and his eight hundred and fifty-page book, Marketing Management, is widely referred to as the bible. In Kotler on Marketing, he takes the reader through a whirlwind tour of the marketing discipline. Marketing is more than "selling with a college degree". Rather it supplements selling, using strategic tools, such as segmentation, and tactical tools, which help match benefits to needs. As Dilbert says, the most important segment is the 'stupid rich', and if you sell enough units there, then you develop economies of scale and can sell to the 'stupid poor', the segment "where the real volume is".

The book has four chapters on strategic marketing which teach us how to build value and deliver brand equity. It then has four chapters on tactical marketing which teach us to design the marketing mix, and two chapters on administrative marketing, which involves planning, organising, evaluating and controlling. It has a further section on transformational marketing, looking at trends and predicting the essential marketing issues of the future.

Management textbooks are well known for their acronyms and alliterative lists, the three R's, the four P's, and the seven S's to name a few. This book is contains many such lists from winning marketing practices, to an updated version of the four P model, as well as the five generic value propositions. Each chapter has questions at the end to help the manager "apply the content to his company's situation", and there is an appendix at the end looking at success strategies of marketing in different industries.

Jane Gephart, editor of the Sloan Management review, asks her contributors if they can write an introduction which "does not mention the pace of change in today's world". Kotler on Marketing mentions the pace of change repeatedly and uses the standard case studies such as Wal-Mart and South West Airlines in their expected settings. However, if you are not one of the three million students who have bought Professor Kotler's text books, and don't have the time to wade through 800 pages, then you will find this book easy to read and comprehensive. It will give you the framework, the questions, and the language needed to hold an intelligent marketing conversation. In that sense, this book is itself a case study in marketing; it is a repackaged product, aimed at a target market and using value pricing.

Book Review: Kotler on Marketing, How to Create, Win and Dominate Markets, by Philip Kotler, the free press 1999.

Dr Michael Gering, Michael is a director at Sediba consulting, a company which he co-founded.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on marketing!
Review: This book is an excellent book on marketing. It starts with strategic, than tactical, and than administrative Marketing. The chapter about marketing in the New Age of business is a great resource for information.

It is a book about the basics of marketing, the basics one might want to understand and compare to one owns company, a must read for every marketer.

Rating:
Summary: Concise summary of contemporary marketing topics
Review: This book is very useful for novices (easy to read) and experts (plenty of ideas) alike. If you do not have time to read a 900 page marketing text book, but would like to get the gist of all ideas presented in it, you should read this one. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Kotler in One THIN Book
Review: This book is written for those who is not expert in Marketing and doesn't have time to read through the Marketing Classics "Marketing Management" (one of the thickest Marketing book) by the same author. As it put all Kotler's idea in one book, it also serve as a "review" even for those who read through "Marketing Management". If you are only allow to buy one book from Kotler, buy this! Greate book!

Rating:
Summary: Strong general overview!
Review: This book offers an overview of modern marketing principles. It is strongest for its clear conveyance of general concepts but may leave those hungering for detail unfulfilled.

Those interested (as I am) in customer relationship strategy will find the following chapters most relevant. Chapter 2 describes functional responsibilities in a customer-centric organization. Chapters 3 and 8 provide strategies for delivering additional value to customers. Chapter 7 discusses the acquisition, retention and growth of customers, with a proper emphasis on retention and growth.

Kotler provides many illustrative examples within his text. Isolated case studies are not used.