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Book
Summary: Marketing Myths That Are Killing Business
Printed
with permission from TCI
Management Consultants. A group of senior-level management
consultants, offering strategic planning and marketing services
to a wide range of public and private sector clients.
Marketing
Myths That Are Killing Business: The Cure for Death Wish
Marketing
by Kevin J. Clancy, Robert S. Shulman,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1994
'Death Wish Marketing' - the very concept is calculated
to strike the fear of failure and ignominy into the hearts
of marketers everywhere. Clancy and Shulman make the case
that many products and services, and the companies that
offer them, are failing and dying due to the incompetence
of those in charge of the marketing function. Why? Because
they subscribe to a variety of misleading if not downright
false 'marketing myths'. This syndrome is what the authors
term 'death wish marketing'. ('Wishful thinking marketing'
would probably be a better term, but what that gains in
accurate description it loses in drama and urgency. Given
that the authors are marketing experts we suppose that they
know what they are doing.)
Especially
susceptible to this suggestion of 'death wish marketing'
are those that may have gravitated into the marketing function
from somewhere else in the company, and who are unsure of
the ground they may be on. Even seasoned marketers, seeing
the conventional wisdom of their trade debunked in the book,
will have cause to question their own attitudes and ideas.
In short, Clancy and Shulman have created a reason for everyone
in the marketing game to feel nervous if they haven't read
this book.
Beyond
the hyperbole and scare tactics, though, there is a great
deal of useful advice and perspective in the book. Clancy
and Shulman investigate fully 172 marketing 'myths' that
they say are plaguing business today. These are discussed
under twenty different topic areas:
business performance
marketing planning
marketing department organization
marketing decision-making
marketing research
the marketing climate
new product introduction
targeting
positioning
advertising
media planning and scheduling
promotion
public relations
pricing
sales force management
direct marketing
retailing
customer service
test marketing
measuring marketing performance
Each of the 172 marketing myths is exploded in an entertaining
and informative way, in a short, highly readable essay of
1 to 2 pages. These essays draw liberally from recent business
situations, and tend to have a contrarian and adversarial
flavour. Examples include:
one good way to spot marketing opportunities is to see what
your competition is doing (Myth # 10) - The authors claim
that this may be more likely to set you off down the same
garden path that your competitors are on, than to reveal
any profound insights.
people
like to shop; it's a form of recreation (Myth #43) - "Are
you kidding? People hate to shop." say the authors.
Aside from certain crazed affluent women, consumers generally
want to waste as little time as possible in the physical
act of shopping - hence the growth of catalogue sales and
the increasing interest in purchasing via the Internet.
psychographic
segmentation is a useful tool for segmenting markets (Myth
#64) - Total crap, say Clancy and Shulman, because psychographic
variables are at best only remotely related to consumer
behavior and market response.
a
company cannot measure the effect of public relations and
other forms of corporate communications (Myth #109) - Their
verdict on this one? A cop out. "Nonsense", they
say. "It's relatively simple to measure the public
relations effect", and they obligingly provide some
ideas as to how it can be done.
the
essence of a retail operation is location, location , location
(Myth #144) - Wrong-o!, say the authors. The right idea
is concept, concept, concept - if you have the right retail
concept, and aren't located somewhere in the extreme boonies,
the market will seek you out.
...and so on. Each essay is a little reality check of this
sort. You may or may not agree with their spin on the issue,
but there is no denying the entertainment value, of what
they are saying and how it is presented.
Clancy
and Shulman are the former chairman and CEO respectively
of the Yankelovich Organization, one of the largest and
most respected marketing consulting organizations in the
world, so they are not exactly fly-by-nighters. Also, Clancy
is a professor of marketing at Boston University.
All
in all, a good read, with some interesting and illuminating
insights.
Oh,
yes, one final point..... The authors present a very interesting
'Test Your Marketing IQ' exercise at the outset of the book,
consisting of twenty multiple-choice questions on various
aspects of marketing. It's worth taking before reading the
book, and may give you food for thought. At any rate, it
will give you some insight as to how Clancy and Shulman
intend to handle their subject.
The
above summary has been provided to you compliments of TCI
Management Consultants
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