Kellogg on Integrated Marketing [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

The last time I checked, Amazon and its online partner Borders sell more than 38,000 different books on the general subject of marketing. Presumably this number will continue to increase as organizations become more actively involved with marketing initiatives to create or increase demand for what they offer.

What we have here is one of the volumes which comprise a series produced by faculty members at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University or on faculties elsewhere. It was edited by Dawn Iacobucci and Bobby Calder; Don E. Schultz provides the Foreword, "Evolving Marketing and Marketing Communications into the Twenty-First Century."

I feel obligated to suggest at the outset that none of the volumes in this series is an "easy read." On the contrary, each requires but will generously reward a careful consideration of its contents which, in this volume, are carefully organized within 14 chapters which range from "Overview of Kellogg on Integrated Marketing" (Iacobucci and Calder) to "Reflections on a Great Marketing Organization" (Stephen Burnett). Long ago, I concluded that if marketing's primary purpose is to create or increase demand for whatever is offered, and, that all marketing initiatives should be "integrated" in the sense that they are comprehensive, cohesive, and cost- effective. Moreover, that everyone within a given enterprise should be directly involved in (or at least supportive of) those initiatives.

Perhaps it would be helpful to those who read this brief commentary if I were to provide a representative selection of brief quotations which suggest the range and depth of issues addressed and insights shared.

"For marketing a relationship to be developed, a brand must behave in a way that is consistent with the brand and that leads to a reaction from the customer that establishes a pattern of behavior. For example, A sports television network, such as ESPN, wants to engage in relationship marketing. The network could advertise that it is your sports partner. They team up with you to give you sports coverage wherever and whenever you want it. Is there a marketing relationship in what we have described? We think not. With whom is the customer having a relationship? There is no experience to define a relationship. Nor is there any behavior flowing from that experience for the consumer to react to." Andrew J. Razeghi and Bobby J. Calder, "Using Interaction Maps to Create Brand Experiences and Relationships." (page 52)

"The impetus for thinking about WOM [word of mouth] or buzz from a strategic point of view originated with the work of Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarfeld...almost 50 years ago. In their book, Personal Influence, they contrasted the power of consumer-to-consumer contacts with that of advertising and other types of mass communication and postulated that the process operated through a `two-step flow.' Certain individuals, termed influentials, took in information and passed it on to others with whom they were in contact. The key idea was that influentials were influential because of their links to a community of other people who would not otherwise be exposed to or absorb the information....Gradually, the notion was added that as information `diffuses' through a community, consumers pass through stages from just being aware of the information initially to finally being persuade to adopt a product." Maria Flores Letelier, Charles Spinoza, and Bobby J. Calder, "Strategies for Viral Marketing." (page 90)

Sub-segmentation "takes place after targeting a brand at a market segment and acquiring a database of customers. It divides a market segment into further subgroups. The marketing manager must have marketing plans for each sub-segment, because all sub-segments are customers. Other direct marketeers use the term customer segmentation or market segmentation to describe this activity, but the term sub-segmentation is less ambiguous (even the term customer can mean different things to different marketers)....There are two kinds of customized sub-segmentations, depending on the data-mining methodology used to find the sub-segments. First, there are `unsupervised learning methods' (obvious splits, clustering, latent class analysis). This approach yields segments of people who are similar to each other on some customer attributes....The second type of customized sub-segmentation is based on supervised learning methods like Chi-Squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) and bump hunting. These approaches yield segments using a set of `predictor' variables that have similar values of some dependent variable, such as long-term value (LTV), attrition, and so forth." Edward C. Malthouse, "Database Sub-Segmentation." (pages 165 and 166)

I realize that these three brief excerpts are taken out of context, as would be any others shared in this commentary. However, what I hope I have indicated is that those who have contributed to this volume have given a great deal of careful, indeed thought to the scope and depth of the subject each discusses; moreover, they rely upon a specific nomenclature when sharing their observations and insights, a nomenclature which should be familiar to senior-level executives who are responsible for formulating, implementing, and then managing a sophisticated marketing program.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Kellogg on Branding co-edited by Alice Trybout and Tim Calkins, Kellogg on Marketing edited by Dawn Iacobucci, and Kellogg on Strategy co-authored by Daniel Dranove and Sonia Marciano

I also highly recommend Theodore Levitt's The Marketing Imagination (which includes his classic HBR article, "Marketing Myopia"), Kenneth E. Clow and Donald Baack's Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications (Second Edition), George E. Belch's Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, P. R. Smith and Jonathan Taylor's Marketing Communications: An Integrated Approach, and Noel Capon and co-authors' Total Integrated Marketing: Breaking the Bounds of the Function.

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.

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.