amj Australasian Marketing Journal - ANZMAC

Book Reviews
Here we do see a lot of familiar material, in the form of portfolio
management and Porter s five-forces etc. Perhaps the
one development in strategy that Doyle has not entirely
embraced is the market maker / rule breaker approach (also
termed strategic innovation - essentially an extension of the
resource-based view of the firm) popularised by Hamel
(2000) and others (e.g. Markides, 1999). The presentation
here is still heavily influenced by the classic industrial organisation
view that industry is the prime determinant of
performance, and that industry structure is a given.
Nonetheless, true to his promise, Doyle extends these frameworks
to incorporate the shareholder value discipline.
Part 3 of the book focuses on implementation, and covers
brand equity, pricing, communications and internet marketing
(but interestingly, there is not a chapter devoted to distribution).
The material in this section will be very useful to practicing
managers in particular, as Doyle provides a set of
methodologies for relating specific marketing (mix) actions to
the value-based metrics. For example, he sets out how
communication programs should, in his view, be justified to
management. He challenges one of the standard methods that
uses incremental sales as a key justification, rightly pointing
out that a great deal of advertising maintains sales levels
rather than increases them, and that to expect short-term
paybacks is often unrealistic. Advertising has longer-term
effects on key intangible assets such as brands and customer
relationships, and therefore these effects should be included in
the business case used to justify expenditure (investment).
That is, we should use the same financial principles to justify
marketing programs as are used to justify building factories or
investing in other tangible assets.
Peter Doyle is not alone in stressing the importance of
marketing accountability, or advocating a closer link between
marketing, finance, and shareholder value (for example, see
Ambler 2000; Srivastava et al., 1998). However, he is the first
to produce a holistic marketing text based around this
84 Australasian Marketing Journal 9 (1), 2001
perspective. As well as an outstanding academic, Doyle is an
active consultant and executive teacher with his finger clearly
on the pulse of marketing practice. The combination of
rigor and relevance to today s business environment makes a
strong combination.
The book would be suitable for three audiences: i) students
taking a core marketing class at a masters level; ii) undergraduate
students studying strategic marketing; and iii) practicing
marketing managers (and therefore executive education
groups). For teachers, if you are looking for something different,
relevant, and more concise than some of the door-stoppers
currently on offer - and you buy into the shareholder
value argument - then have a look through this text. Kotler s
own endorsement on the front cover ( a book destined to
spark a revolution ) suggests we will be reading a great deal
more about value-based marketing in the future.
Chris Styles
University of New South Wales
References
Ambler, Tim. 2000. Marketing and the bottom line. London:
Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Doyle, Peter 1997. Marketing Management and Strategy.
Second edition: London: Pearson Education
Hamel, Gary. 2000. Leading the Revolution. Boston: Harvard
Business School Press.
Kotler, Philip. 1999. Marketing Management. Tenth edition,
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Markides, Costas. 1999. All the right moves: A guide to crafting
breakthrough strategy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Srivastava Rajendra K., Shervani, Tasadduq, A., Fahey, Liam.
1998. Market-based assets and shareholder value: a framework
for analysis. Journal of Marketing, 62 (1), 2-19.