Marketing [antikvár]

PREFACE conomics is about exchange—people, businesses, and other organizations ex- changing one thing for another. Production is about making that something of value which is exchanged. Accounting is about recording and reporting exchanges. Mar- keting is about making those exchanges happen, and about establishing the envi- ronment in which they can happen. In the very crude economies that characterized human existence before the twentieth century, and that still do exist in many parts of the world, marketing is not central to exchange. But in our current economic order, which happily involves making many economic choices, the role of marketing is central. This book is designed to help the student learn about marketing in this fun- damental way, leading toward an understanding of the full scope of marketing principles and practices in the modern world. The text is thorough, at a level of rigor appropriate to the student being formally introduced to the subject for the first time, and it is written specifically to make the subject both lively and interesting. Approach Any book must bear the stamp of its author's particular approach to the subject. After over a quarter of a century of teaching marketing, I am fully persuaded that students learn marketing best by seeing how it is done by the most sophisticated and effective marketing organizations. After an equal number of years working in and with marketing organizations—both effective and ineffective—I have developed solid views about what makes for sophisticated marketing. The approach of the best marketers can be described in two ways. It includes a disciplined process, and it involves a particular content. The process must begin with analysis of markets and the environments in which marketing operates. It proceeds to planning marketing efforts to reach organizational goals, and on to the implementation of those plans. The process ends with a mechanism for control, or an evaluation of how well plans have been implemented. The content is that which is planned and implemented—the key decisions and actions of the marketing organization. This encompasses the products to be marketed, the prices charged for those products, how those products are distributed, and how they are promoted. These subplans, the so-called "4-Ps" (product, place, price, promotion), comprise the detail of marketing. In addition to this view of the process and content of marketing, a strong aspect of this book's approach to marketing is its focus on competition. The essence of marketing is choices and about how organizations attempt to influence those choices. When competitors also attempt to influence those choices, marketing is more likely to take a leading role. There is much being said these days about