Preface

Basic Marketing Is Designed to Satisfy Your Needs

This book is about marketing and marketing strategy planning. And, at its essence, marketing strategy planning is about figuring out how to do a superior job of satisfying customers. We think that is very important. We also think it is important to practice what we preach. So, you can bank on the fact that this new edition of Basic Marketing and all of the other teaching and learning materials that accompany it will satisfy your needs. We're excited about this edition, and we hope that you will be as well.
In creating this edition we've made hundreds of big and small additions, changes, and improvements. We’ll highlight some of those changes in this preface, but first it’s useful to put this newest edition in a longer-term perspective.

Building on Pioneering Strengths

Basic Marketing pioneered an innovative structure—using the “four Ps” with a managerial approach—for the introductory marketing course. It quickly became one of the most widely used business textbooks ever published because it organized the best ideas about marketing so that readers could both understand and apply them. The unifying theme of these ideas was how to make the marketing decisions that a manager must
make in deciding what customers to focus on and how best to meet their needs.
It has been four decades since publication of the firstedition of Basic Marketing. During that time there have been constant changes in marketing management and the marketing environment. Some of the changes have been dramatic, and others have been subtle. As a result, there have also been many changes in marketing’s best practices and ideas. So, there has also been ongoing change in the text. Throughout all of these changes, Basic Marketing and the supporting materials that accompany it have been more widely used than any other teaching materials for introductory marketing. It is gratifying that the “four Ps” has proved to be an organizing structure that has worked well for millions ofstudents and teachers. ...