[2012]

MARKETING MATERIAL

Extracts from this material can also be found on Wikipedia

This section is one which is made up entirely of material taken from my publications. As such it can be best seen as classical supporting material, not autobiography; though there is an autobiographical element in the anecdotes I report. In addition, the ideas I promote in the various publications may tell you as much about me as the pure autobiography.

It also provides a rather different framework for the collection overall; providing some of the key ideas and theory I would now offer the world at large. Indeed, marketing - dealing as it does with social relationships - offers the basic building blocks for the future of society. If you ignore the naive core assumption, common to all western business theory, that the US form of capitalism must rule the world, and that profit is the only value which matters, its description of the factors which shape relationships across much of society is a useful starting point for any look at the future as well as the present.

The initial elements of this section come from my books in this field, and as such are organized chapter by chapter; and even then are much longer than those from the autobiography.

As the autobiography demonstrates, my career before the Open University was largely spent in the field of marketing. In addition, I had followed my IBM book with a not very successful one about selling; even though it had also been sold on the US market.

Accordingly, when it came to putting this experience into books I initially wrote about my experiences. Thus ‘Marketing’ became my greatest success, selling - over the best part of a decade - something like 50,000 copies in total. The version included here was the modified first edition (160,000 words), rekeyed in India as preparation for (and format for) the (shorter) second edition. The second edition - 'Marketing' by David Mercer (Blackwell, Oxford, 1996) - can still be ordered through bookshops.

9430 Marketing Chapter 1 - Introduction

9432 Marketing Chapter 2 – The Customer

9434 Marketing Chapter 4 – Market Positioning and Segmentation

9435 Marketing Chapter 5 – Product or Service Decisions

9436 Marketing Chapter 6 – New Products

9447 Marketing Chapter 7 – Pricing Decisions

9438 Marketing Chapter 8 – Distribution Decisions

9439 Marketing Chapter 9 – Advertising

9440 Marketing Chapter 10 – Other Forms of Promotion

9441 Marketing Chapter 11 – Selling and Sales Management

9442 Marketing Chapter 12 – International Marketing

9443 Marketing Chapter 13 – External Environment

9444 Marketing Chapter 14 – Marketing Planning

The associated instructor manual (of 70,000 words by itself) was produced as an aid to institutions (which then included the London Business School) in the use of the Marketing book for their teaching. It was photocopied and was provided free to them; together with questions and answers. It was largely written on our cruise down the Nile!

The second edition, which these refer to, took account of some of the key elements which emerged from my research into what managers wanted from marketing theory.

In addition, I rearranged the material in the form of a dictionary/encyclopaedia. I must admit that a hidden motive for this was so that I could record my occupation on my passport as 'lexicographer'. Unfortunately by the time it came out the passport no longer held this information, and - with Blackwells not getting behind it - it did not make substantial sales!

However, in addition, I persuaded Penguin to publish a popular paperback which looked at marketing from totally new directions; using the results of my research to develop new, more practical, theory. In the event it was anything but popular! It turned out that managers typically only read about the theory in order to get their qualifications; and otherwise thankfully turned their back on it! In addition, at the time, Penguin was in chaos. I remember one day meeting the publishing director, who personally handled my book, to be told that the MD had just lost his job – though they were only just telling him this as we talked! Even so, I still believe the ideas in this book were a useful antidote to all the esoteric theory otherwise taught by business schools; so please read what I had to say – even if few others ever did!

Too many, indeed most, business school academics seek respectability by teaching their subjects as if they were sciences; and throw in quasi mathematical approaches which are not only nonsense but divert their students from the true facts of business life. At best, I believe business subjects may be technologies, based on hands-on experience. The Penguin book concisely covered:

I was later commissioned to write a short (popular) book called ‘Marketing for Managers’, following more traditional lines as part of a new series of business books Orion was introducing. Unfortunately, despite it being their own book, the Orion salesforce didn’t get behind it and sales were not as outstanding as they had hoped. Soon after this the Orion title was sold on, and effectively ceased to exist.
9090 Marketing Manager 1 - Philosophy of Marketing
9022 Marketing Manager 2 - Customer as Hero
9036 Marketing Manager 3 - Listening to your Customers
9086 Marketing Manager 5 - Sales Talk
9064 Marketing Manager 6 - Mass Advertising
9085 Marketing Manager 7 - Planning for Success
9029 Marketing Manager 8 - Long Range Marketing

Later, when I was producing the OUBS course on e-marketing, I was asked by Wiley to write a book on this subject as part of their new range designed to cash in on the dot.com boom. Regrettably, the dot.com crash came just as the series was launched. Even so, a handful of books in the series were launched, including mine (called ‘New Economy Expression: Redefining Marketing in the Multi-Channel Age’), but the rest were cancelled – including my companion book (which my agent fortunately had negotiated as part of a two book deal – so I still got paid!):

9026 New Economy Expression A: 1. e⁺synergy, 2. controlled anarchy, 3. genuine customer partnership
9087 New Economy Expression B: 4. global hide and seek, 5. new marketing theories for old, 6. product/service decisions,
9074 New Economy Expression C: 7. pricing or promotion, 8. services in e-commerce, 9. the e-retail model
9089 New Economy Expression D: 10. how do you make money, 11. business-to-business (b2b), 12. future developments, 13. conclusion

At the same time I was starting my research career, initially with material obtained from the consumer audit company BMRB, along with a small research study on changes in brand leadership. The papers I published (or, as shown in italics, delivered at conferences), where each ‘web-page’ covers one such paper (and is shorter than the book chapters, but longer than the autobiographical elements), are listed below (with those few relating to my later PhD highlighted in bold) were:

7144 BAM 92 - Winning Brand Leadership

7223 Unpublished – Brand Segmentation

Subsequently I conducted extensive survey research amongst OUBS students in general. Indeed, where other academics tend to use very small samples and then analyse the results with levels of statistical sophistication they will not bear, a feature of almost all of my research was the much larger numbers in the samples I used and the sophisticated – but practice-based - market research techniques I employed.

7221 British Journal of Management – Product Life Cycle Theory
7255 MEG96 - Management's Commitment to Marketing Theory
7300 MEG96 Marketing Philosophies

I also ‘published’ a number of papers on how I thought marketing theory (and some practice) might profitably be changed as a result of my research:

7237 Target Measurement – Marketing Practices

7262 MEG93 - Competitive Saw

7202 Teleteaching93 - Large Scale Conferencing

7235 MEG93 - Conferencing for Marketing Students

7212 MEG96 - Investment in Conviction Marketing

7239 MEG96 - Focus Groups

7233 BAM97 – Dynamic Repositioning

7159 BAM 97 - Warriors, Collaborators and Cartels

7259 EMAC97 Three Pillars

7244 EMAC97 - Competition and Pricing

7220 EMAC97 - Rule of History

7205 IMP97 - Ego Drift or Emergent Strategy

7218 MEG97 - Rules of Thumb

7249 Admap – Advertising Investment

7219 Admap – Focus Groups

Finally, I wrote a fictionalized (but semi-autobiographical) record of selling, as part of my uncompleted (and, of course, unpublished) novel, Porphyry:

0036 – Part 15 - Sales in the Office –a genuine description of my experiences in IBM Biomedical sales.

0086 – Part 16 - Cold Calls & Bone Marrow – and the dubious pleasures of selling.

0042 – Part 25 - US Jetlag – the joys of long distance travel!

[back] [home]

Hit Counter hits

7144 BAM 92 - Winning Brand Leadership

7223 Unpublished – Brand Segmentation

7221 British Journal of Management – Product Life Cycle Theory 7255 MEG96 - Management's Commitment to Marketing Theory 7300 MEG96 Marketing Philosophies

7221 British Journal of Management – Product Life Cycle Theory
7255 MEG96 - Management's Commitment to Marketing Theory
7300 MEG96 Marketing Philosophies