Kanghua Chen
Marketing 340
Dr. Anna A. Prisacari
March 27th, 2013

Book Review

I got this book from Parks Library after I did research for marketing books, the system also highly recommend this book for me. Philip Kotler represents one of the authorizes in the world, he wrote many famous books in marketing industry, like Kotler on Marketing, A framework for marketing management, B2B brand management, Strategic marketing for nonprofit organizations, Corporates Social Responsibilities and etc. He has been honored as one of the world's leading marketing thinkers. He received his M.A. degree in economics (1953) from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. degree in economics (1956) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and has received honorary degrees from twelve foreign universities. He is the author of over 40 books and over one hundred articles. He has been a consultant to IBM, General Electric, Sony, AT&T, Bank of America, Merck, Motorola, Ford, and others. The Financial Times included him in its list of the top 10 business thinkers. They cited his Marketing Management as one of the 50 best business books of all times. Then I chose this book without hesitation.

Marketing Management briefly introduced what is marketing, “meeting needs profitably”. Marketing Management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value. Global markets: goods and services for global marketplace. Developing marketing strategies and plans Strategic planning consists of 3 actions broadly – 1) Managing a companies’ portfolios 2) Assessing each business’ strength by considering the market’s growth rate and the company’s position fit in that market. 3) Formulating a game plan for each of its businesses to achieve long-term objectives. Also gathering Information and scanning the environment the marketing environment is changing at an accelerating rate. In addition, generation, nationality, social class, these variables are the most popular basis for distinguishing customer groups. One reason is that consumer wants, preferences, usage rates are often associated with demographic variables. Another reason is that demographic variables are easier to measure even when the target market is defined in non-demographic terms, and other many very essential and specific points, so I won’t list all of them here. All in all, this book is the gold standard marketing text because its content and organization consistently reflect the latest changes in today’s marketing theory and practice.

I spent approximately two weeks to read this book; I found the biggest characteristic of this book is that it has a very clear venation which could string those marketing main points together. However, for what does this book lack of, I could find three totals: 1. some examples for Internet are too old, development of Internet and techniques goes fast, but I think it will be changed in latest edition. 2. Some examples for Chinese markets are used not appropriate, like Mengniu and Kodak. 3. Some terms and points are really hard