The Oxford Textbook of Marketing

Citation

Broderick, A. (2000), "The Oxford Textbook of Marketing", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 215-218. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2000.3.4.215.1

There are few more challenging propositions in the world of academic publishing than writing or editing an introductory textbook on marketing that offers something new to its readers. Keith Blois, in editing this new marketing textbook has taken a different and refreshing approach. Rather than collaborating with two or three other authors to cover all the key areas of marketing, he has combined chapters from a number of leading authors in specialist areas of marketing and integrated them in one textbook. Therein lies one of the strengths of this textbook.

It effectively represents distilled thinking from leading experts in marketing in their chosen areas, evident for instance in the chapters on marketing planning by Malcolm MacDonald, in an interesting discussion of the marketing mix by Walter van Waterschoot and in a well‐developed treatment of brand management by Graham Hankinson. The collaboration of such prominent international marketing scholars offers up‐to‐date insights to the reader and brings a welcome blend of cross‐national perspectives to the subject.

It also includes specialist chapters ranging from a chapter on services marketing by Christian Gro¨nroos, to small firms marketing by David Carson, and to an overview of direct marketing by Adrian Sargeant.

One disadvantage of the Blois approach is perhaps some inconsistency in the depth of analysis that is offered. Some authors go beyond what might be expected in an introductory level marketing text, while in one or two chapters the reader might wish for a more challenging discussion of particular concepts. In addition, some individual authors devote a larger amount of space to a rather narrow aspect of their own particular subject, as evident in the perhaps over‐generous nine pages devoted to the product elimination process by George Avlonitis in his chapter on product management. In spite of these minor shortcomings, the text is edited well and offers a well‐structured and clearly integrated framework for anyone approaching marketing for the first time.

Chapters follow a relatively homogeneous structure, with definition and exposition of the key concepts, followed by the author’s own elaboration, interspersed with short examples, effectively offset in a different colour. Many authors offer a short historical perspective or overview on their particular topic and each chapter finishes with a useful consideration of future directions with regard to that topic.

The Blois text offers both mini cases at the end of each chapter and a longer in‐depth case at the end of each section. These are generally interesting, representing both consumer and industrial contexts and offering a variety of marketing problems for analysis. One small caveat might be the need for the inclusion of more non‐profit cases in the selection. One useful innovation is the chapter links that are offered in each chapter, highlighting the areas where the same topic or closely linked issues have been previously discussed. This parallels the hyperlink convention from the Internet.

Overall, the textbook successfully brings together a lot of subject expertise in the key areas of marketing in a well‐structured and readable format. A student reading the text should gain a well‐integrated and insightful view of the marketing discipline and lecturers will find the Blois approach refreshing, where the innovative editorial features offer something different in the saturated domain of the introductory marketing textbook.