Marketing

The book i read to research this post was Marketing: An Introduction by Philip Kotler et al which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book was published in 1987 so for example doesn't contain anything about online advertising. It is a specially low priced book aimed at the student market and does a credible job of explaing the basics of marketing. Marketing is a lot more than simply selling stuff, as it encompasses things like pricing, customer care and after service, not to mention advertising and branding. An interesting example of how marketing could would was the merger of Dart & Kraft Foods in the early 80's where the latter wanted to diversify away from foods which could be a volatile market. Both companies had a wide range of products with Dart tending to do household products like superglue for example. They poured money into the lines that were profitable and saw there profits increase and the lines that weren't making money they sold. The latter happened to such an extent many questioned whether the merger was a good idea but the share price for Kraft went up 5 fold between 1982 and 1986. Many large companies have specialists in things like PR, advertising, branding as well as marketing and I think they are the kind of people who should read it. The book is almost 600 pages and while it is a bit dated is certainly interesting. I quite enjoyed reading it and if like me you see it being sold cheap is a good buy.