Customer Reviews

Marketing Management (13th Edition)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book tries to cram too much into each chapter, often breezing over incredibly deep topics in a way that is only confusing.

For instance, one chapter on data analysis mentions linear regression but doesn't speak at all to what it is. If I had not taking a Quant course recently I would have been completely lost.

This seems to happen the most frequently at the ends of chapters. It seems as if they cover all the main points and then Kotler et. al try to cram all their other little notes and tidbits into overly dense paragraphs just before concluding.

Also if you're a student who has to take the accompanying tests created by Prentiss Hall, expect the questions to come literally word for word from the test, rather than asking concept questions. I felt like I was back in gradeschool.

On the plus side, the book constantly gives breakout examples of the topic being discussed as applied in real life to actual businesses. Where many texts would continually reference the same handful of examples, the companies featured in this book vary widely in size, industry, and other features, giving a good, broad look at marketing as a whole, not just in the US but globally.

This was a required textbook for my graduate-level Marketing class. The book is way too wordy. It appears that each successive edition simply adds on more and more shameless corporate plugs that are not at all enlightening. You really feel like you are being constantly marketed to. There is good information, but you'll have to skim past a lot of fluff to get to it.

Reading this book for an upper level undergraduate marketing class. This book is poorly written, it is hard to read and the concepts are a little disorganized. Furthermore, it is extremely boring, it is a pain to take good notes of this book while you read. The only good thing about the book are the companies used to give examples of the marketing techniques being discussed, the companies are varied and not only from the United States. But besides that, this book is terrible. It gives complex definition for terms that are simple and logical. Simple concepts are explained in a way that 'goes on forever' without actually making the point. The summaries at the end of the chapters are poor. And there are no exercises to test your knowledge. Avoid if possible.

I purchased mine else where and just finished using it in class. It matched page to page of the hardcover and the pictures were in color. The only difference is it is paper back and the pages are not glossy.

Marketing Management is one of the better textbooks of my MBA program. The concepts are described in a clear, concise manner. There are numerous examples of companies with successful marketing and those with major faux pas. Even without having taken an introductory marketing course, I had no trouble understanding the text. The layout is well designed, rich with graphics and interesting pictures. I would proffer that Kotler/Keller's Marketing Management (13th Edition) could be used successfully by undergraduates and higher-level students.

Another review mentioned corporate references or endorsements. Of course they refer to well-known organizations! This is a business text for business students. It would be bizarre if they ignored the real-world to the exclusion of theory, which was a fatal flaw of textbooks' past.

An Excellent book. Covers a wide variety of topics in marketing although it does not go in depth of any of them. If you are looking for an overview of marketing(in totality) this book is fabulous. If you are looking for indepth knowledge of certain marketing concepts, this may not be the right book for you..

This is an excellent book, and is widely used.

But what i don't get is why is the hardcover version so expensive? I compared the Hardcover version to the Paperback version (The paperback version is described as the Eastern Economy Edition) and the contents are the same and the quality is very similar. The thing is that you can buy the paperback version for less than $50 for a new copy, while the hardcover will set you back $100 or more. I definately don't see a reason why anyone would want to pay $50+ more for the hardcover version.

If you want to take a look at the paperback version, simply copy and paste B001Q2CP6S into the search box.

Happy bargain hunting :)

The chapters in this book tend to be long and painful to read. Painful mentally because of the rambling, disjointed text that flits from topic to topic, doesn't seem to follow an outline, and never seems to get to the point. Painful physically because of the herky-jerky potpourri layout: everywhere on the page there are bold colors, strange dissimilar types of bullets, weird fonts, different sizes and colors of headlines, and unenlightening diagrams. And the sidebars! There seems to be a sidebar every page or two. I guess the authors decided that their main text stream was so boring that you'd want to multi-task by reading several threads at once.

Our marketing professor opened the class by saying this is the classic book used by most of the better MBA programs, and simply having it on your shelf convinces people you know something about marketing. Well, I'm glad to hear it has a use that doesn't involve opening it.

Buy this only if you have to for a class, but even then, try not to read it!

Always love the broad range of reviews a book can evoke - this one does well in this department and all fair as we all have a perspective.

I mainly teach academic composition to engineers, but have had the experience of conducting the same course with business students. I found this book to be very helpful in getting across some interesting ideas to my students, and we have gone beyond the books content and meta-analyzed the book itself for ways to present information professionally and clearly. So - it is a winner in how I have used this book, and the success it has had.

The book starts off gradually and introduces key concepts in a simple way. My students are not native English speakers and although we have some challenges the way lexical items are presented we know "clearly" what the emphasis is via bold text. Seriously, this helps them a lot. I also like the case studies and presentation of management skill development tools (i.e. SWOT).

I have also used this when I was back in Japan teaching at a language school (I have the Millennium Edition) and we used the data (graphs/charts), case studies, and leadership PD ideas as discussion starters with high level non native English speakers. The tasks went well and the adults appreciated "real" content as opposed to the concocted watered down tasks created for the English Teaching market. At the time a local shop had this book available for next to nothing ($5 - $10) and this was a bonus allowing us to purchase a few for the small language class.

If you want to use this for a course at a college or university I think it would be a great resource, but with the considerable expense that will occur, order an inspection copy if your decision will be to have hundreds of students purchase this. Be sure it fits your needs as if you make students buy this and don't use it: that would be wasteful.

If you are wanting to learn something from this text, you will find that it will leave you with way more questions than answers. Kotler & Keller do exactly what others have claimed - breeze right over the essence of a concept leaving you to have to seek out other resources just to gain a firm understanding of whatever they have presented.

Many of the diagrams have little to no explanation, leaving you to wonder exactly what the components are and how they are relevant. Many important concepts are mentioned, then never spoken of again. Current, real-world examples are given, yet they aren't really related back to any portion of the text for integration into the core concepts. Much of the book reads like a long research paper - attempting to show that the student has a firm grasp of the concept with awkward citations plugged into various places. There is very little in the way of instruction or deep explanation.

I honestly think this could be a great book for an MBA course if more relevant information was elaborated and less citations to lend credibility. On the positive side, the book serves as a good summary of marketing concepts for you to use to do further research on the various subjects - but it is definitely NOT the "gold standard" that it claims to be.