Marketing Warfare (Revised Edition)

Author: Philip Kotler
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-09-01
Features: One of the greatest marketing classics of all time, it elaborates on the strategic, planning, and tactical principles of today's marketing wars. Marketing is war. To defeat your rivals, it's not enough to target customers. Salespeople must focus on their competitors, always ready to defend against potential rivals and protect their own territory. Revered by the American business community as the "On War" of corporate marketing, it explains the strategic, planning, and tactical principles of today's marketing. Marketing is war, and to defeat your rivals, it's not enough to target customers. Today's marketing, in essence, is not limited to serving customers but rather involves how to defend, attack, flank, and guerrilla in competition with rivals. In this war, the enemy is the competitor, and the customer is the territory to be captured. Today's business world calls for more marketing generals, needing more people to take on the responsibilities of commanding and guiding the overall marketing strategy. The qualities future marketing generals should possess are flexibility, willpower, and courage. Based on the thoughts of the great 19th-century Prussian war philosopher Carl von Clausewitz on war, the author first introduces some representative battles over 2,500 years, then proposes the mathematical laws of marketing warfare—under the same conditions, large companies defeat small companies; however, a company with a scale advantage attacking a disadvantaged defensive company may lead to failure. These laws seem very simple but contain profound philosophy. Especially rare are works like this that can convey their essence through simple mathematical laws and concrete examples. The book focuses on explaining four common strategic forms in marketing campaigns, such as defensive, offensive, flanking, and guerrilla warfare; for each form, it proposes three principles that should be followed...