( 4 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 13 2009
It's kind of a continuing education course for a mid level brand manager. About 5% highlight able and not much to sink your teeth into and have anything hit the ribs and stick. The good news is that it was worth the 2 hours it took to complete. John Halloran CEO Certified Gold Exchange, Inc
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( 0 of 5 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jan 9 2007
Have obtained a degree at a Harvard Business School partner organization and that's why I have bought loads of Harvard Business Essentials. Just to put you in the picture: these books are essential for my development....
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( 10 of 11 found this review helpful ) Posted: Sep 15 2004
I read this book when it was first published in 1999 and recently re-read it, curious to see how well it has held up during the past five years. I think it has done so to a remarkable extent, with my only regret being that Theodore Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" is not included among the selections. This is one in a series of several dozen volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. All of the volumes have been carefully edited. An Executive Summary introduces each selection. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section which usually includes suggestions of other sources which some readers may wish to explore. In this volume, we are provided with a variety of perspectives on marketing: Keller's on "the brand score card," Jackson's on bringing a dying brand back to life, Rao/Bergen/Davis' on how to fight a price war, Kenny and Marshall's on "contextual marketing" (i.e. "the real business of the Internet"), Aaker and Joachimsthaler's on the "lure" of global branding, Hatch and Schultz' on getting corporate strategy and branding in alignment, Brown's on "tormenting" customers, and Almquist and Wyner's on how to increase the ROI on marketing with experimental design. Quite true, some of the material is dated and inevitably so, given the elapsed time since the articles were published in the Harvard Business Review. However, in my opinion, the principles advocated and the core strategies recommended remain relevant to the contemporary marketplace. For about the cost of breakfast in an upscale Manhattan restaurant, each volume in this series provides an intellectual feast. It remains for each reader to determine, of course, which of the volumes will be most nutritious to her or his appetite.
