Includes bibliographical references and index.

Letter to Val -- Introduction: Pathways in Marketing -- 1. Advertising kite high: Getting great advertising from your agency -- 2. Brand equity: The asset the marketer is building: the source of profit -- 3. Category management and other heresies: Being distracted from the brand may be good business, but poor marketing -- 4. Distribution channels: The rate of change of shopping habits and distribution possibilities is easily overlooked -- 5. Extensions and brand families: Brands are becoming more complex assemblies of products and sub-brands -- 6. Failures bring success: The only true failure is the failure to try: experimentation should be encouraged -- 7. Global marketing: National borders have declining importance to marketers -- 8. Heritage matters: Consumers buy brands they trust -- 9. Information systems survival kit: Marketing information is going from drought to deluge - how to cope -- 10. Beyond the J curve: Trends and forecasting --

11. Kamikaze and guerrilla marketing: What marketers can learn from the military -- 12. The educated lunch: Reserve time for random thinking -- 13. Marketing today and tomorrow: An overview of how marketing is evolving -- 14. Novation: New brands, products and renewals -- 15. Organization structure and entropy: Bureaucratization can kill marketing. So how should you organize? -- 16. Positioning - marketing's martial art: The brand's choice of fighting ground is crucial to its success -- 17. Product satisfaction: Whether goods or services, the product should bring the customer back for more -- 18. Packaging for the party: First impressions are just the beginning of what the pack can do for the brand -- 19. Pricing in grandmother's footsteps: The price premium is the litmus test of marketing: getting it right -- 20. Public relations are private affairs: Sometimes the Cinderella of the marketing mix. Fitting the shoe --

21. Promotions, coupons, and giveaways: The basic workhorses of marketing programs -- 22. Personal selling: The origin of all marketing even if technology is reducing the numbers -- 23. Pragmatic planning: The agenda that brings the team together to optimize expenditure and results -- 24. Quantity ergo sumo: Size, volume and market share, however impressive, are not everything -- 25. Relationship marketing: Brand equity lies in the strength and quality of the brand's relationships with its customers -- 26. Research is always incomplete: Tempting as it is, you cannot do marketing by numbers. Some pitfalls -- 27. Surgical segmentation: Tailoring the offer to fit each consumer group -- 28. Training the professionals: Big money rides on marketing decisions. Are your marketers fit enough? -- 29. Ugly duckling: Great new brands become swans but seem ugly ducklings at first. So do ugly ducks. Getting innovative brands through the organization --

30. Value marketing: The word "value" too often means cheap. It should mean satisfaction -- 31. Which agency? How to select an advertising, or other creative, agency -- 32. The Rule of [Chi]: Look for the inverse of whatever marketing news you are brought -- 33. "Yes" is no decision: Superficial agreement is dangerous -- 34. Zen and now: In other words, learn to live with the paradox, so much a part of marketing.