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Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions Philip Kotler John Wiley & Sons Hoboken, NJ 2004 152 pp. US$19.95 (hardcover)
Keywords Marketing management, Marketing theory, Customer orientation
Review DOI: 10.1108/07363760510576563
Ten Deadly Sins expresses the essence of Philip Kotler on marketing. It may sound ostentatious to claim one small ten-chapter tome encapsulates the thought of one of the most prolific writers in the field of marketing. But from the introduction on the state of marketing in business, to the review of the Ten Deadly Sins, to the epilogue of the ten corresponding Commandments, you are reading the core of Kotler as expressed in his textbooks, specialty marketing writings, and his non-profit work over the past decades.
Written in the "One-minute" format, Kotler's book declares the common mistakes of ineffective marketing. Each chapter is set up for a quick read with an opening summary of the problem, a box of two-to-four bullet-pointed signs of the problem, followed by a short explanation of each in the text. Then, the second half of each chapter is marked by a box of corresponding bulleted solutions, with two or three paragraphs of general instructions on how to implement them and the probable outcomes. In each portion there are mini-case examples exemplifying the problem discussed or the solutions offered. The busy marketing professional could read through this book in two hours and then spend days mining his principles and the reference works Kotler cites. The non-marketing manager would gain significant insight from its concise review of common marketing execution errors and its proofs for the centrality of marketing to the entire firm and its relationship to both the other functional areas and a firm's strategic processes.
After a brief review of the state of marketing today, Kotler focuses the opening two chapters on the customer, then moves to competitor analysis and stakeholder considerations. He uses the next three chapters to review the marketing process; identifying opportunities, planning, product development, and branding. The closing two chapters address marketing organization and the use of technology. The first four chapters, then, are about understanding your constituencies, the middle four are about the functions of marketing, and the...