market-economics

Author's presentation is lucid and scholarly. Looks at both Austrian, Keynes, and post-Keynesian literature including Davidson. Much discussion of interest rate as inter-temporal allocator of savings. An outstanding work.

tikki tikki tembo no sorembo charra barra moochi pip berri pemb

I've been re-reading the book - The Kids Market: Myths and Realities, and once again I'm struck by the insight, and the thoroughness of the research. Dr. James U. McNeal has put together a book that truly is a must have for us in the business of marketing to kids.

I would like to talk a little about chapter 9 - 'Barriers to Understanding the Kids Market'. Dr. McNeal points out two caricatures of marketers targeting kids : The "WIWAKs" and the "Marents". The "WIWAKs" exemplify the "When I Was A Kid" approach to kids market strategy. Marents - on the other hand - base their kids market strategy on the fact that they are both marketers and parents. This supposedly gives them a special insight into the kids market.

Dr. McNeal then goes on to give a real gem of a formula: "C=f(P,E); that is, Children = function of (Parents, Environment). In long form, what children are, how they think and act ,are a function of both parental and environmental forces constantly at work, even before they were born." (pg. 111)

This is why the "Marent" approach to marketing is so potentially misleading. A marketers children are often more likely to reflect their parents' values than a true sense of the kids market.

This formula also points out the implicit need for accurate research and product testing to avoid basic marketing blunders such as: "Targeting all kids aged 2 - 12 with one ad message on one TV program, packaging salty snacks for kids in packages that don't cater to their limited dexterity, concept testing a product only among parents, offering premiums whose use requires adult supervision, and displaying product for kids in stores well above their eye level." (pg. 111)

In conclusion 'The Kids Market: Myths and Realities' is a must read for anyone interested in reaching the kids market. You can test your own knowledge by comparing your understanding of the kids market to the 27 myths and realities as presented by Dr. McNeal in this well researched and wonderfully presented book.

You also get lots of pie chart type marketing data research and charming drawing by children about their perceptions of the shopping experience. Dr. James U McNeal is a Professor of Marketing at Texas A&M University where he teaches courses in marketing and consumer behavior. He is also the author of 'Children as Consumers' and 'Kids as Customers'.

Marketers to the Kids Marketplace will find this book invaluable.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have, Judith Judith A. Jewer - KidsMarketing.com

This is a very informative book about the buying behavior of children around the world. This book has given me much insight into this topic. I have also read "Creating Ever Cool." They are two complementary tools for marketers.

I balked at paying $55 but this book has proved to be a bargain at the price. Bowditch has successfully distilled--in highly readable and enjoyable fashion--seven years of experience as a publicly financed developer of Ghana's newest national park. His insights are informed, not only by his impressive academic training (Harvard A.B. 1966; Princeton M.P.A. 1974), but by the obstacles he faced as a white American newcomer and the comparisons he can draw to his earlier endeavors in a number of countries in Asia and, before that, as Maine's Secretary for Economic Development. Bowditch's enthusiasm for Ghana is heartfelt and contagious. He gives many good reasons why Ghana is likely to be every bit as competitive in the new Millenium as the so-called Asian Tigers were at the end of the last. Whether or not Ghana will quite prove to be an African Lion, Bowditch is bullish on its prospects. His famous ancestor and namesake was known as "The Practical Navigator" of the open seas. Bowditch may well become that for American investor/entrepreneur or those just interested in Ghana. I therefore highly recommend this book!

I found this book to be very interesting and well organized. The author's personal experiences keep your attention. They make it much easier to follow and understand the points the author is making as he examines Ghana as a country of potential opportunity in the economically emerging continent of Africa.

This author is as good a novelist as he is college faculty ~ spellbinding. He is an exceptional storyteller. You, too, will be hanging on every word!

this is one of a million waiting to be told i appreciate the courage luana

I read this book, man. I mean, dude, it was killer stuff. Seriously, duuuuuuuuuuuuude. Wow man. I gave it 5 DUDES man.

Since the beginning of movie making, film makers have tried to mirror society. The counterculture has always been a favorite sticky issue, including marijuana use. As early as the 1920's, the "loco weed" has made many cameo appearances and a few starring roles. From it's early days of scare tactics in the now famous cult favorite "Reefer Madness", to the late 70's marijuana heroes, Cheech and Chong in "Up In Smoke", grass has come full circle. Although it is said that millions light up every day, Tinsletown has had a difficult time dealing with the use of marijuana on the silver screen. Nowadays, the majority of films that feature marijuana are somewhat neutral in their portrayal of this "illicit activity" and by now, many major actors and actresses have turned on! In this book, you will find over 500 movies from the past 60 years that feature references to marijuana. Whether it's a full blown pot film like, "Half Baked" or "Dazed and Confused" to a quick shot of a bong on a table or a joint in a drawer, you'll find all of marijuana's movie roles in this, The Complete Guide to the Hollywood High. Buy It!

Expanding on the groundbreaking concepts first presented in Market Driven Strategy, George S. Day presents a detailed illustration of what a market-driven organization looks like and how it operates. This practical book provides many specific suggestions that executives can implement to get their companies in tune with their customers and their markets. Day also presents contrasting examples that show blunders, setbacks and outright failures among companies that stubbornly retain inward-looking cultures. This book joins Day's earlier work as a classic in the management field and we [...] recommend both books to business people at all levels.

Too often, executives think that "being market-driven" is just a catch-phrase; this book explains the difference between being market-driven and being technology-, sales-, or finance-driven. It describes why market-driven organizations are more profitable, using clear examples of successful companies. It's a must-read for senior executives.

Market-driven politics - part two of review
There is a great wood and trees problem in understanding the politics of this process. Unlike the textbook models of markets, every single real market has its own unique features. Individual cases then enable us to see some of the common features of this process. Leys does not make the case that each of the four conditions have a distinctive politics. Instead he shows the roles of lobbies, of personal networks of influence, of political funding, of the infiltration of political parties, the state and institutions of global regulation, of the resourcing of partisan research and think tanks, of the interested peopling of advisory councils and public boards. Their purposes, in a spectacular denial of conflicts of interest, are to weaken public regulation in relentless cycles of pressures for incremental change, to weaken enforcement and/or quality standards (but to apply them selectively to disadvantage public services), to weaken sources of resistance and stoke support, to restrict public capital and current expenditure, to re-structure the sources of public revenue, to claim risk-minimising contracts with residual state providers, to present the transformations of service into commodities, supply and demand as a 'technology' transfer and abolish the concepts of public service. In both broadcasting and health conglomerates diversified, concentrated and differentiated; pay became spectacularly more unequal, product quality was shaped by commercial interests and residual services deteriorated and were rationed. New labour politicians, whose party is increasingly funded by corporate interests, operate in centralised and 'depoliticised' ways which take them away from the electorate, unions and activists and enable them to naturalise markets and audit and to de-democratise the state..

At a time when Tony Blair has called public service unions 'wreckers', Colin Leys shows just who the real wreckers are. He argues that public services are a key aspect of a democratic society; they express such a society's collective interests and they help shape it at the same time. There is never no alternative. Public services can be provided in many ways, from voluntary work, through non-profit trusts to state provision. These can be more efficient - not simply in costs but also in the quality of outcomes - than are firms dominated by short-term shareholder interests. Leys indicates what is to be done: public services need a clear philosophy that is publicised, celebrated and funded through taxation. They need practical policy, encouraging innovation and dynamism where it can be justified on public service grounds. They need active political protection and defence from the constant attempts to invade which 'markets', aka capital, are bound to make.

This is a richly researched, well structured, beautifully written and compellingly argued book, and one which offers an original analysis of the hegemonic politics of markets. It could not be more relevant to our times. Buy this book, but do not add it to the gently groaning shelf. Keep it much closer to hand; read, reflect and act on it.

Market-driven politics

Followers of the debates on globalisation will be well aware of a surge of recent books associated with the anti-globalisation movement which explore corporate brands have reshaped consumption and culture (Naomi Klein's No Logo) have infiltrated the state (Noreena Hertz Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy)and have also consumed political parties and refashioned them in their own image (George Monbiot's Captive State).

Colin Leys, the reputed scholar of third world development and of British politics, has entered the fray on behalf of a socialist alternative with an investigation of the response of national politics to global economic forces. He uses the experience of Britain for this project, but his story spans the world and is of world-wide relevance. The book moves its lens systematically from the global system towards the detail of rapidly proliferating real markets. Leys peers through two key holes to see the politics involved in the penetration by markets of areas of society formerly ring-fenced for non-market forms of provision and values. The two cases are public service broadcasting and health care; both regulated in distinctively British ways but now being privatised and commercialised in ways only too familiar worldwide.

Leys starts where most critics of globalisation leave off. The economy is replacing society as the subject of politics. In low intensity democracies (the phrase is Samir Amin's) ruling parties find it increasingly difficult to direct the terms on which governments regulate the economy, though there are conditions under which some do it better than others. Their politics is driven by corporates which operate not nationally but globally. Leys has a wealth of evidence with which he fleshes out this profoundly political process (globally in chapter 2 and in Britain in chapter 3).He asks: how do states get voters to endorse policies which meet the demands of capital? How do states pull off the theft of sovereignty from their citizens? How are markets to be naturalised and democratic politics to be insulated from demos? This book answers such questions.

There is a general logic to the process: capital must expand. 'Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets'! proclaimed Karl Marx. Capital expands in many ways, some primitive (resources are seized by force, peasants shoved off the land) others are sophisticated and carefully planned (the seething life cycles of products and their substitutes). Markets appear to slither into households (domestic service) and out again ('DIY', but read the book, for DIY is not what it seems..). Markets proliferate (markets for derivatives, markets for advertising, for management consultancy, legal advice, repairs..).

Leys follows markets expanding into the non-market public sphere. This is the arena for public goods, for national culture and for democratic expressions of citizenship. The novel insight powering Leys' analysis of market-driven politics is as follows. For markets to take over, four political conditions have to be achieved. First, public services have to be broken down into sets of private commodities (hip replacements, laundering, current affairs programmes popular with advertisers....) each of which can be supplied at (more or less) known prices. Second, needs and delights have to be reworked into effective demand expressed through purchasing power alone. Third, workers with collective values and a public service vocation have to be transformed into profit-makers and on less secure terms. Lastly, business requires and usually gets the risks of this transformation to be underwritten by the state. Those remnants of public services that cannot be completely abolished will be left as services of the last resort.

After this first phase looks like being successful, the general dynamic starts to grind; the costs of labour can be reduced; less specialised labour may be shed, components may be subcontracted to cheap sites. Products will be standardised for scale economies and a mass market. 'Flexible production' usually masks a standardised technological core. All other labour, all other costs, will be transferred to consumers. (And the buck stops with women.)

Private contractors do not have to be efficient to notch up rates of profit attractive to shareholders. Public resources will be transferred to retain poorly functioning private firms up to the point where the costs of maintaining an inefficient status quo exceed those of exposing deficiency or delinquence, together with the transactions costs of replacing the contract.
- to be continued - in part two of review

This book provides concepts of intermediary firm and its functions in economy. The author starts by introducing Princing Mechanism and Adjustment (with uncertainry) in the first part. He give use a fancy applications in Economic Theory (Gen. Eqlm.) and competition among intermediaries in part II. Part III, he seperates the concepts of matching and searching. Part IV, Adverse Selection and Moral Harzard problems are also given. Part V is Transaction Cost. Part VI is Agency Theory. All are presented with intermediary concepts. The author gives ideas about intermediary in many aspects by collecting lots of papers and conceptualization of thems. The concepts can be used in financial and physical markets. It is indispensable for students who want to study Market Microstructure, Intermediary and E-commerce Concept.

Intermediaries play a significant role in market economies. The author identifies that role and develops a conceptual framework of the major functions of intermediaries in markets. The main idea, which goes beyond the classical dichotomy of firms vs. markets, is simple but powerful: firms create and manage markets. I think it is a book that should be read by everyone interested in understanding how markets work.

This book was honest, funny, and thoroughly entertaining. Mr. Collins obviously is not afraid to appear less than cool or all-knowledgeable about his subject, but he obviously knows enough to give his reader a ton to think about. In my life, I've encountered many traders who come up with systems, but I haven't met one who doesn't frequently circumvent them. Collins' own experience with such improvisations merely confirms what I've observed--a winning trading approach is incompatible with human emotion. The trades we feel the most sure about are almost always the ones that lose money. But it's obviously hard to stay one-hundred percent committed to a mechanical approach, as Market Rap confirms. I don't know how effective the systems in the book are, (I will get around to testing them), but they seem simple and straight-forward; characteristics that work the best in my portfolios also. Finally, most traders can't get enough of trading books just because they love the subject so much. What's especially cool about this book is, the author obviously shares our passions.

Market Rap: The Odyssey Of A Still-struggling Commodity Trader is the story of Art Collins who left a job with a generous, secure income to pursue the frantic and frenetic life as a full-time floor member of the commodities exchange. In making this transition Collins endured loss of security, the consternation of family, and personal demons that threatened to undermine his dream. Market Rap is funny, poignant, harrowing, and a riveting read. Included throughout Collins personal story are highly effective trading ideas and methods. Market Rap is immensely rewarding reading for anyone who aspires to become a successful commodities broker, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in this significant aspect of the American economic system.

Starting out in business is difficult enough without having to then build a full-fledged marketing and advertising department. With buying product and stocking inventory, and running the business, I just didnt have the time or know-how to deal with the positioning, targeting, and awareness campaigns to take my business to the next level. Enter THE MARKETING GLOSSARY (the CD version)in a new and cutting edge form. Just having the disk on my desktop saved me the cost of a marketing manager and the embarassment of not having a formal MBA in marketing. It's lightning fast and real easy to move from term to term and back again. It gave me my basic training within a week. Since then, any time I'm on the phone with a client or vendor and they speak about reach, frequency, semantic differential, or A.B.A. (no not the American Bar Association), I am no longer struggling to keep up. All my employees have a copy on their desktop as well. And the information provided isn't one word quips - these are jargon-free, detailed explanations that allow me to zoom between sections faster than a paper glossary would allow me. This is like a marketing degree in a jewel case. Great tool. I strongly recommend this tool to anyone starting in or attempting to maintain a successful business.

"Let's do a heavy up in the top ten DMAs so we can increase our GRPs."

If that sentence confuses you, you're not alone.

Like any business, the marketing world has its own jargon. Sometimes confusing, occasionally humorous, the vocabulary of the modern marketing professional may often seem confusing -- especially for small business owners, who often wear many hats and whose expertise must cover a broad spectrum of tasks. But with the help of Mark Clemente's excellent reference work, you too can talk the talk just like the corporate pros.

Even those who study marketing, on either a graduate or undergraduate level, will often find that they are woefully unprepared when it comes to the real world. Textbooks are long on theory and short on practical advice. Even more troubling, few of those teaching marketing have had practical experience.
Thus the enterprising young marketing person is often left to sink or swim. Unless they begin their careers with a firm that offers training -- more of a rarity these days -- the novice marketer will usually be expected to "pick it up on the street" just as their elder colleagues did. That can work, but with The Marketing Glossary on their shelf, they will be well ahead of the game.

Among the many appealing aspects of Clemente's book is the lucidity of his prose. When attempting to find out what a GRP is, unsuspecting marketers will often be confronted with a turgid definition written by a media professional, replete with brain-numbing formulae. By contrast, Clemente lays it out nicely:

"Gross rating point (G.R.P.) A measurement of audience size (viewership or listenership) to quantify a medium's ability to reach a target audience. G.R.P.s estimate the number of people a communication will reach, irrespective of audience duplication. G.R.P.s are stated in terms of percentage: each G.R.P. represents 1% of the people or households tuned to a TV program (as compared to the total number of TV sets in the market being studied). G.R.P.s are calculated by multiplying the total reach of the media schedule by its frequency. Thus, the product of reach and frequency expresses the gross duplicated percentage of audience that would be reached by the advertising vehicle."

Where was this book when I started out in the business? (And if you want to know what a "heavy up" is, you'll have to buy the book.)

On occasion, there are some curious omissions. Anyone who works on a consumer packaged goods account will undoubtedly come across the term "slotting fee." Alas, that is nowhere to be found in The Marketing Glossary.

Understandably it would be nearly impossible to include every single bit of cant that might come up in the course of a marketing career, but Clemente does an outstanding job of aggregating the most important words. More importantly, the Glossary is up-to-date and includes the latest online slang. This will undoubtedly appeal to some of the senior marketers who still find the whole "Internet thing" confusing.

Finally, The Marketing Glossary is also available as an e-book. Just buy the PDF and keep it on your laptop. Imagine the points you can score in meetings with all that knowledge at your fingertips.

The reviewer: Jonathan Jackson is an independent consultant based in New York City. He has written extensively on internet advertising and e-mail marketing since the inception of the internet. A frequent guest speaker, Jonathan has addressed global audiences on marketing and advertising topics and also teaches marketing at colleges around the world.