THE GURU GUIDES

Peter Drucker, the guru of all management gurus, once wrote that marketing was the distinguishing, unique function that set businesses apart form all other human organizations. As a business person, you know how important the marketing function is to the success of any business. You also know that marketing is in the throes of change. The Internet has altered the dynamics of customer and business-to-business relations. Regardless of medium, advertising doesn’t seem to work quite as well as it once did. Once strong brands seem to be less potent. Of course there is no shortage of explanations for what is happening to marketing and advice for remedying its ills. Amazon.com lists over 13,000 books on marketing and a search on Google.com yields over 22 million Internet sites devoted to the topic. There in lies the problem.

If you are like most people, you simply have too much to do and too little time to sift through hundreds of books, thousands of articles and millions of web sites on marketing to uncover the latest trends and revelations. Which books should you read? What articles could provide you with insight into emerging marketing issues? Whose writings should you seek on the Internet and in your library? Who are the leading authorities on brand management, customer relationship management, and other hot marketing topics? What advice do they give? How do the ideas of one authority complement or conflict with those of another? You need a guide to answer these questions. Congratulations. You have just found it.

The Guru GuideÔ to Marketing has been designed to provide you with a clear, concise and informative digest of to the best thinking about marketing in the new global, high-tech world of business. It is a highly opinionated but informative guide to ideas of the world’s top marketers and marketing consultants. Like the original Guru GuideÔ (Wiley, 1998), we have designed this Guide to be more than just an overview of current thinking. We go further to link and cross-link the ideas to show where the experts agree and disagree. We show how the gurus’ ideas have evolved. Finally, we provide an evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

We have designed this book to be your reference manual to the current challenges marketing faces. It is organized around key marketing issues. We cover each issue in a separate chapter and present a summary of the best thinking of a panel of new-economy gurus about that issue. We show where the gurus agree and disagree. When our gurus offer different approaches—such as a different sequence of steps to follow in addressing an issue or solving a problem—we use tables, charts, and exhibits to illustrate the similarities and differences.

We have organized our gurus’ ideas into six chapters.

Chapter 1: The Death of Marketing provides an overview of some of the most critical challenges our gurus say marketers face today including the increasing difficulty in creating relevant and distinctive product differentiation, the impact of the Internet on consumer/business and business to business relations, the declining effectiveness of advertising, and attacks on traditional pricing schemes.

The five remaining chapters of The Guru Guide to Marketing cover five different approaches our gurus offer to address the marketing’s problems and challenges.

Chapter 2: All You Need is a Brand presents the arguments a vocal group of gurus make for addressing marketing’s problems though improved brand management. Among other things we cover our gurus’ recommendations for improved product postioning and building a strong brand.

Chapter 3: All You Need is a Customer Relationship covers one of the hottest marketing topics of the day—Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We examine what our gurus say is the key concept underlying CRM and its principal advantages over other approaches to marketing, such as branding; four steps our gurus say companies should take to implement CRM, how they say companies must reorganize the marketing function and the company in general to make CRM work; and, key questions they say you should ask to determine if CRM is right for your company.

Chapter 4: All You Need is Customer Equity presents the arguments of another group of marketing gurus who say that neither branding nor Customer Relationship Management offer a real cure for marketing’s ills. Instead they say companies should treat customers as financial assets and marketers should focus their efforts on building what the gurus call “Customer Equity.” In this chapter, we compare and contrast two competing approaches that our gurus offer to both measuring and building Customer Equity.

In Chapter 5: All You Need is Buzz we present the arguments of a fourth group of gurus who say that the key to solving marketing’s problems isn’t more branding or relationship and equity building but rather just more “word-of-mouth” Buzz. We explain why they say Buzz is critical now, the questions you should ask to determine if you have a “buzzable” product or service, and the steps they say you should take to create genuine street-level excitement and “infectious chatter” about your product or company.

Finally in Chapter 6: All You Need is Tease, we present a provocative challenge made by one maverick marketing guru to the dominant underlying principle of modern marketing management—the belief that companies should be customer-centered and customer-focused. This guru maintains that the cure to marketing’s problems isn’t more slavish devotion to understanding and meeting customer needs but rather a return to an old-fashioned, P.T. Barnum-inspired marketing showmanship filled with “tricksterism,” “exaggeration,” “flirtation,” and “fun.”

We conclude the book with an appendix in which we provide biographies for all of the gurus, including in many instances postal addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses where they can be reached.



THE GURUS

In selecting our gurus, we began by making a list of established marketing gurus such Philip Kotler, Ted Levitt, and so on who have dominated marketing thinking for decades. Then, we went looking for the new comers. We browsed the online and offline bookstores. We consulted the marketing journals both popular and academic. We cruised the Internet. We searched for those who were making a splash with new marketing ideas. What journal articles and books on marketing were people reading and talking about? Who did the popular media—TV, radio, business periodical—cite on emerging marketing issues? Who was widely recognized as THE marketing authority? Who was getting recognized? Who was being quoted? Who’s ideas were being discussed? Who’s were being cussed?

Because the economy and marketing’s challenges have changed so dramatically in the last few years, we focused our search primarily on the most significant books and articles that had been published over the last three years. We checked the best-seller lists to see what people were reading, and we asked our friends, clients, and associates to recommend people they thought had unique marketing insights. We ultimately narrowed our list down to the 62 gurus listed here.


David Aaker Sam Hill Stan Rapp
Harry Beckwith Robert Hisrich Frederick Reichheld
Robert Blattberg Arthur Hughes Al Ries
Neil H. Borden Erich A. Joachimstahler Laura Ries
Marc Braunstein Guy Kawasaki Martha Rogers
Darren Bridger Duane Knapp Emanuel Rosen
Kevin J. Clancy Philip Kotler Roland Rust
Steven Cristol Peter C. Krieg Bernd Schmitt
Adam Curry Chris Lederer Don E. Schultz
Jay Curry Katherine Lemon Evan I. Schwartz
David d'Alessandro Edward H. Levine Peter Sealey
Frank W. Davis Jr. Jay Conrad Levinson Patricia Seybold
Scott M. Davis David Lewis Alex Simonson
George S. Day Karl Manrodt Jacquelyn Thomas
Laura Day Chuck Martin Daryl Travis
Frank Delano Regis McKenna Jack Trout
Gary Getz Mary Modahl Lars Tvede
Malcolm Gladwell Adam Morgan Fred Wiersema
Marc Gobé Frederick Newell Valarie Zeithaml
Seth Godin Don Peppers Sergio Zyman
Ian Gordon Faith Popcorn



The Guru Guide™ to Marketing is the perfect companion to the other Guru Guides™ and a critical reference tool for every thinking business leader.

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