Kellogg on Integrated Marketing

Rating:
Summary: Support for the Entrepreneur
Review: As an entrepreneur getting my business off of the ground over the last two years, I found this book extremely useful. I was searching for a book that would fulfill the role of a text book without being so forumulaic and simplistic. This provides that balance, with it's original case studies. I was also searching for a book on marketing that would apply to me, with my limited marketing resource budget. I had heard of the term "integrated" marketing before, but I was unsure about how it could be effective vs. simply advertising or doing a good PR campaign. I recommend it highly for entrepreneurs who must rely on small budgets, grass roots events, word of mouth and small marketing budgets.

Rating:
Summary: Tools I Can Use
Review: Finally. In a world of one trend book after another, this book gives readers a solid foundation for understanding the latest developments in marketing. The authors provide a scholarly treatment of their subject matter, while not being densely academic and therefore difficult to follow. But although not academic, it is still a serious piece of work that makes you think. Today it is easy to find how to marketing books from practioners who want to apply rules based on experience without any thought to the discipline, human behavior, and deeper issues. Yet the book is loaded with original cases. In particular, the chapter on "viral marketing" provides grounded cases and a framework for applying solid word of mouth techniques. As a VP of a Sales Organization, this chapter gives me tools that I can apply to my sales organization without having to hope that a PR campaign has the expected impact.

Rating:
Summary: Water Wings for the Deep End
Review: Kellogg on Integrated Marketing offers the depth you'd expect from Northwestern's faculty with the practicality you'd expect from people who have to practive what they preach. The book's reality-based content presents an overview of the current state of marketing practices, technologies and trends and then blends them into one integrated concept that takes you to a whole new level of possibilities.

Case studies offer the good and the bad, the "happy endings" and the challenges. Tables and figures offer practical examples and information on measurement, research and vision.

I think what I like most about the book is that it takes the best of current best practices, adds some new strategies and techniques and offers something truly practical, flexible and timely. I also appreciate the fact that it addresses the challenges of measurement head-on.

This isn't a fad book. It addresses current trends and issues like viral marketing, buzz, branding, customer loyalty, etc. but lets you know there's no one silver bullet. The book offers a very holistic, balanced approach to marketing that just might allow marketing professionals to stay on the cutting edge rather than just visit it once in a while.

The fact that numerous authors have contributed to the book also enhances its holistic appeal. You know you are getting a variety of perspectives, not just a salespitch. It is refreshing to read a marketing book that doesn't have self-marketing as its primary goal.

As our organization develops its integrated marketing domain, we'll be using this book as a key resource.

Rating:
Summary: Good companies with innovative products
Review: This book is well targeted to companies that are bringing innovative products to market and have to be smarter than your average bear in getting noticed and taken seriously.

This book has a good compendium of what "integrated marketing" is all about. For most of us, we can't afford expensive TV campaigns, and need to address our customers in diverse ways, and measuring along the way. For me, CPM and audiences and demographics make no sense, so I appreciated this books more pragmatic cases studies.

Particularly for high tech companies, if you need a good overview of what it takes to create communities, create "BUZZ", and get people excited about your product in a natural way; this book is the best out there (read Chapter 6). The internet is a new medium, but most marketing is still primitive (pop ups? anyone?). There are some good ideas here on how to go about it the right way.

As with any compilation of articles, there are different voices and styles; some are better than others. Skip the bad ones.

But it's still only going to cost less than 10 minutes of your average marketing consultant; so buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Tools I Can Use
Review: What can I say... it is extremely difficult to write a negative review against two of the most important authorities in Marketing today. However, even the best people/institutions have huge "misses". And this book, believe me, is one of them.

Because of the quality of the institutions behind the book it is easy to take the quality of this book for granted. So it is for the same reason that I thought this book merits a detailed review and explain why a simple reader like me gives it no more than 2 stars (meaning that the book is not the worst out there, but it is not quite an "average" book either).

I believe that most of the problem lies on the Editors of the book. I can't imagine how difficult must be to put together people and views from two different institutions (Kellogg Business School and Medill School of Journalism) plus collaborators from other academic institutions and independent consulting companies. What is clear is that the Editors did not succeed in creating a cohesive book: in some cases it is because of the selection of topics/subjects discussed, in some cases because of the selection of the authors and their style, but most importantly because the book lacks a common solid philosophy. It feels more like a collection of disparate work than a book.

Most of the chapters feel repetitive and disconnected. They range from a generalist view of the world (typical from business schools), to detailed discussions of technical subjects (typical from industry practitioners). These two views are not balanced in each chapter (which could be a positive thing), but actually each chapter is one or the other, which creates a mixed feeling of peaks and valleys as you read the book. So overall, the book does not achieve a compelling balance for the reader and fails to leave the reader with a couple of big ideas that help her approach the "issue" of Integrated Marketing.

A closer look by chapter

I truly enjoyed the Introduction to the book and chapter 3 (The Tao of Customer Loyalty). The article is direct, clear, and strong, with great common sense. Unfortunately, most of the good things about the book stop here.

Both chapter 4 and 5 are extremely repetitive as both build on the idea of customer-brand contact points, which should be to most readers an "old" concept already. Chapter 6 has great ideas on the need to understand different communities to achieve truly viral marketing. Unfortunately, I found the authors' style very difficult to read and the chapter extremely long. Just to give you an idea, this chapter is almost 20% of the book and there are other 13 chapters. This is again something the Editors should have spotted.

Chapter 7 on Acquiring The Right Customers is extremely basic, while chapters 8 (Database Sub-segmentation), 9 (Customer Profitability), and 11 (Scoring Models) are extremely technical and address how to look and organize data to help in the marketing decision making process. Then we have chapter 10 on Decision Guidance Systems, which feels that shouldn't belong to this book.

Chapter 12 addresses how the Web has the potential to deliver and support Integrated Marketing ideas. This explanation was needed and given by many authors 3 or 4 years ago. So while true, the chapter is pretty much a laggard in its perspectives. I don't think there is anyone today that does not understand this.

Chapter 13 (An illustration of Integrated Marketing) is simply appalling. Basically the author builds a theoretical example of what IM is supposed to look like. It is simply a waste of time and effort.

And finally, Chapter 14 (Reflections on Becoming a Great Marketing Organization) has a good authoritative tone and interesting closing thoughts. Though as the closing chapter of the book, suffers the same issues as the remaining of he book: the chapter is individualistic and pretty much ignores the content from previous chapters.

So as a closing thought on this review, I would say that this book could suffer from what was said about the old conglomerate structures: they are both worth more if sold (read) separately! The editorial value of bringing ideas and people together to create even more value is simply not achieved in this book.