Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions [Hardcover]

Philip Kotler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471650226 | ISBN-13: 978-0471650225 | Publication Date: April 2, 2004 | Edition: 1

Marketing's undisputed doyen offers an unbeatable guide on what not to do
As the cost of marketing rises, its effectiveness is in decline. CEOs want a return on their marketing investment, but can't be sure their marketing efforts are even working. Truly, marketers have to shape up or watch their business go south. In this clear and comprehensive guide, renowned marketing expert Philip Kotler identifies the ten most common-and most damaging-mistakes marketers make, and how to avoid them. But these ten mistakes are much more than simple mess-ups; they're glaring deficiencies that prevent companies from succeeding in the marketplace. In Ten Deadly Marketing Sins, Kotler covers each sin in-depth in its own chapter and offers practical, proven guidance for reversing them. Marketers will learn how to stay market-focused and customer-driven, fully understand their customers, keep track of the competition, manage relationships with stakeholders, find new opportunities, develop effective marketing plans, strengthen product and service policies, build brands, get organized, and use technology to the fullest.
Covering crucial topics every marketer must understand, Ten Deadly Marketing Sins is a must-have for anyone who want to remain competitive in an increasingly challenging marketplace. Packed with the kind of marketing wisdom only Kotler can provide, this is an indispensable resource for every company-and every marketer-who wants to develop better products, better marketing plans, and better customer relationships.
Ten Deadly Marketing Sins is an unbeatable resource from the most respected thinker in modern marketing.
Philip Kotler (Chicago, IL) is the S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the author of 15 books, including Marketing Insights from A to Z (0-471-26867-4) and Lateral Marketing (0-471-45516-4), both published by Wiley.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“…I heartily recommend it to both the marketing professional and non-marketing manager...” (Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol.22, No.1, 2005)

“…everyone in marketing should give this a read…” (Media Week, 27 July 2004)

“…might well be the most instantly useful marketing guide to come off the shelf for years…” (Internetworks, September 2004)

“… a ‘must-have’ title for anyone aiming to remain competitive in their respective market place.” (Publishing News, 19^th March 2004)

From the Inside Flap

Marketing has ceased to work today. New products are failing at a disastrous rate. Most advertising campaigns do not register anything distinctive in the customer’s mind. Direct mail barely achieves a one percent response rate. Most products come across as interchangeable commodities rather than powerful brands.

No wonder CEOs are demanding more accountability from marketing! They want their marketers to provide financial estimates of ROI, before and after each major campaign. Without profit accountability, marketing budgets will continue to be the first ones reduced when companies must cut their costs.

Why is marketing not working? Prolific author Philip Kotler identifies the ten worst deficiencies in contemporary marketing practice. They are:

• The firm isn’t sufficiently market-focused and customer-driven
• The firm doesn’t understand its target customers
• The firm doesn’t monitor its competitors
• The firm mismanages its relationship with stakeholders
• The firm isn’t good at finding new opportunities
• The firm’s marketing planning process is deficient
• The firm’s product and service policies need tightening
• The firm’s brand-building and communications efforts are weak
• The firm isn’t well organized to carry out marketing
• The firm has not made maximum use of technology

Devoting a chapter to each deficiency, Kotler first lists the signs and symptoms that indicate whether a company is guilty of this weakness–then proposes key improvements to strengthen your company’s practice. Kotler offers proven, actionable responses for putting failing marketing efforts back on track. These aren’t quick fixes, but real long-term solutions for long-term problems. Ten Deadly Marketing Sins offers a methodology for building real marketing efforts from top to bottom that get results–and return failing businesses to profitability.

Covering crucial topics every marketer must understand, Ten Deadly Marketing Sins is a must-read for marketers who want to remain competitive in an increasingly challenging marketplace. Packed with the kind of marketing wisdom only Kotler can provide, this is an indispensable resource for every company–and every marketer–who wants to develop better products and services, better marketing plans, and better customer relationships.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471650226
• ISBN-13: 978-0471650225
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Philip Kotler is the S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management. 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quick read, medium content, October 4, 2004

By 

Lynellen Perry "lynellenDOTcom" (Dumfries, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions (Hardcover)

"Ten Deadly Marketing Sins" is a quick read. The text flows along very nicely, with appropriate and humorous anecdotes. However, the content is only of medium depth. Much of the advice has been said before by other source. Indeed, there are a great many quotes and references to articles and other books. In a way, the book reads a bit like a "literature summary", cobbling together all the interesting tidbits the author has read recently.

I read this book hoping to learn about avoiding mistakes in marketing the products of my publishing company. Since we are a very small company, much of Kotler's advice seemed irrelevant at this time in our development...we don't have a separate marketing department for example. Our marketing people are also sales people, and are also involved in the creative process. Should we someday have more than 10 employees, I can see that a few more of the ideas here should be re-examined.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No Sparkle, A Mere Retirement Sweetener, May 11, 2004

By 

Just My Opinion (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions (Hardcover)

Kotler has always been a very lucid author on issues pertaining to marketing. With marketing moving into a new era, namely relationship, one-to-one he has become somewhat stale. This book contains rehashed old issues, and is merely a compilation of past theories. I get the distinct feeling this book was written to capitalise on his name, and to feather his nest before retirement. His earlier books are better.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly structured, broad approach, January 25, 2007

By 

Andrew Miller (Dublin Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions (Hardcover)

Philip Kotler is a big name in academic marketing circles. He has written 2 tomes that are used in marketing degree, diploma and MBA classes all around the world.

This is a commercial, more readable offering, for the busy executive, that doesn't have time to wade through a 1000 page academic treatise.

Each "Sin" has its own chapter, presenting the "signs" of the sin in bullet point form, so that you can tell if you are committing it, and then more indepth explanation of each sign. Kotler then presents the "solutions" to the sin in bullet point form, and then more indepth explanation of each solution.

This structured approach makes the book very easy to follow, and his main points easy to digest.

The "Deadly Sins" are:
1. The company is not sufficiently market focused and customer driven
2. The company does not fully understand its target customers
3. The company needs to better define and monitor its competitors
4. The company has not properly managed its relationships with its stakeholders
5. The company is not good at finding new opportunities
6. The company's marketing plans and planning process are deficient
7. The company's product and service policies need tightening
8. The company's brand building and communications skills are weak.
9. The company is not well organized to carry effective and efficient marketing
10. The company has not made maximum use of technology.

One possible criticism of this book is that it is too broad. Those ten sins represent a wide spectrum of marketing that 150 pages finds hard to do justice to. However at the end of each chapter, the author references several contemporary books and articles that inspire further reading!

4 stars.