Principles of Marketing
This textbook is quite comprehensive and covers all relevant topics for a Principles of Marketing course, including strategic planning in marketing, consumer and B2B decision making, segmentation-targeting-positioning (STP), market research, global marketing and cultural issues, the marketing mix (decisions on products [including services], price, distribution channels, and promotion), digital marketing and social media, and a dedicated chapter on sustainable marketing. With 699 pages, the textbook is quite extensive, and I appreciate this. However, this is not a “lite” version of a textbook for those students who hate to read.
I have not encountered any issues of inaccurate content in this book. As another reviewer mentioned, the book largely builds on standard definition, concepts, and models (such as the typical five-step consumer decision making process (p. 112) or the common steps in the new product development (NPD) process (p. 349), and these standard elements in the book seem to be accurate. There are indeed always concepts that can be debated, such as what exactly customer engagement is (compare, e.g., p. 482). However, I would argue that even topics that can become a little bit tricky, such as the discussion on the role of symbols and values as part of culture (pp. 271-274), are overall factual and meaningful.
The concepts and insights presented in this book are relevant for aspiring marketing managers. I believe that the majority of the topics discussed are general and universal enough to remain relevant in the years to come. However, it is important to note that there are always specific contextual issues that may change rapidly, and which are not addressed in the book, such as the transition from Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) or the growing relevance and political issues surrounding platforms like TikTok. Despite these limitations that are inherent in any textbook, instructors can easily supplement the book with updated resources, such as additional articles and videos, to bridge the theoretical foundations presented in the book with recent examples and use cases.
As other reviewers have mentioned, the text is well-written and easy to read. The concepts and examples are presented in a clear and engaging way. Additionally, each subsection within every chapter is introduced with specific learning objectives, which effectively sets expectations for the reader regarding the upcoming content. I also liked the inclusion of 'Link to Learning' boxes in each chapter. These boxes contain useful links and use cases, which serve to further clarify important concepts and provide additional information to the reader.
I found the book to be internally consistent because a) all chapters present a similar structure and overall logic, which facilitates the acquisition and processing of content, and b) chapters frequently remind the reader of topics that had been mentioned in other chapters in meaningful ways, which shows that the chapters are well integrated into an overall holistic marketing framework. Furthermore, the book’s layout is satisfying – for example, major headings are numbered and color coded (blue font) which helps with the organization of sections, the use of white space and margins is adequate, and there are a good number of figures and some pictures included in each chapter.
Overall modularity is good, and I would argue that all chapters could easily be used as stand-alone modules. There are parts that rely on content from other chapters – for example, the (in fact very useful) marketing plan exercises that are presented in nine of the 19 chapters do indeed reference back to Chapter 2 (Strategic Planning in Marketing). However, I don’t think that this would generate a major problem for those instructors who wanted to use chapters in the book in a more selective way.
The book is in my opinion well organized and follows a logical flow. Overall, the order of chapters is meaningful by presenting issues first that relate to context and customer understanding, such as needs, wants, and value (Chapter 1), decision making (Chapters 3 and 4), STP (Chapter 5), market research (Chapter 6), and global marketing (Chapters 8-9), and then focusing on the marketing mix in detail (Chapters 10-18). I also feel that the organization within each chapter is appropriate and facilitates the comprehension of the content.
The book is available as pdf or online (website format). Both presentation formats worked for me without any distortions or other problems. The quite impressive number of clickable links to useful outside sources generally works, with maybe a very small number of links that are not functional anymore (which is almost unavoidable, given that the book was copyrighted in 2022, two years ago from the time of writing this review).
I would argue that the book is overall very well written, and I did not see any significant errors in spelling, grammar, or expression.
I did not notice any content that appeared culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. Chapter 8 (Marketing in a Diverse Marketplace) explicitly addresses diversity and inclusion in marketing, touching on issues such as race, ethnicity, and multicultural identity. While the book offers some important initial insights on these topics, it does not delve deeply into underlying problems. However, I believe that this approach is appropriate for a Principles of Marketing textbook, as it allows instructors to supplement the material with additional content and provide their own perspective on the topic.
The book comes with instructor manuals for each chapter, PowerPoint slides, and a test bank. The PowerPoint slides are not exactly impressive in terms of content and layout, and they certainly do not entice users to read through them (however, this is in my opinion the same with all commercial textbook providers, such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Cengage). There is one instructor manual for each chapter, which mainly replicates the content from the book, and there is not much guidance provided in these manuals. However, this is in my experience also typical for commercial textbooks. Overall, the book is on par with established commercial textbooks when it comes to these additional instructor resources.
I appreciate the knowledge check sections included in each chapter. While these sections contain relatively simple multiple-choice questions, they serve as effective tools for students to assess their understanding of the basic concepts covered in each section. The presence of an answer key at the end of the book ensures that students have access to the correct answers.
There is a link to a downloadable marketing plan template (p. 42) which looks very useful. There is apparently no sample marketing plan included in the book. However, I believe that this should not be a major issue because instructors can indeed point students to sample marketing plans from external sources.
The book provides examples and links to publicly available videos, including content from sources like Yahoo Finance and similar service providers. However, it is worth noting that some of these videos are somewhat dated, ranging from 5 to 10 years old. Therefore, it may be advisable for instructors to supplement the course material with more recent links to external use cases and videos.