For a full list of related titles, and for other reviews which we do not have space to print, visit our website www.theidm.com or phone the IDM on 020 8614 0274
A third edition
A distillation of best practice
A resource rather than a continuous text
Integration of new technology
410
Book Reviews The Interactive and Direct Marketing Guide The Institute of Direct Marketing, 2002; softback; 3 vols; ISBN 0 95 18692 9 9; £185 (£165 members’ rate) The direct and interactive marketing industry has recently experienced a period of almost exponential change. When the IDM produced the last (second) edition of its practitioner guide in 1998, the full potential of the Internet was finally being realised, marketers were dreaming of the interactivity that might be offered by WAP technology, and digital broadcasting in both television and radio was still in its infancy. Today, rapid growth in all these fields, coupled with a growing appreciation of the customer value that may be created through a binding of these new opportunities with long-established interactive marketing principles and practice, has distilled a plethora of opportunities that organisations elect to ignore at their peril. It is against this backdrop and almost certainly because of it that the IDM has recently produced the third edition of its guide. As was the case with its predecessors, this is emphatically not a textbook. While there are now a number of texts which purport to teach individuals how direct and interactive marketing is managed and developed, these are frequently targeted at undergraduate students and lack the level of professional detail necessary to conduct direct marketing in practice. The guide is designed to move beyond basic principles and to offer both new and experienced practitioners an authoritative source of up-to-date information on how to operationalise the major aspects of direct marketing activity. It provides a series of checklists, critical success factors, process diagrams, a clarification of key terminology, contact information for trade bodies and importantly a distillation of best practice in each particular field. Readers are guided through the practicalities of dealing with each aspect of interactive marketing, learning how to set budgets in each medium, integrate key issues such as lifetime value, plan and implement campaigns, measure the results and importantly to stay within both the letter of the law and the best of professional practice as they do so. While some would undoubtedly disagree I do not believe this is a text which is designed to be read from cover to cover (although even the most experienced of us would have much to gain from this); rather I would view it as a resource that one might dip into as and when required. Staff faced with dealing with an unfamiliar area, planning a new form of direct marketing for the first time, benchmarking aspects of their performance/ practice or simply looking to track down that elusive piece of information would find the guide of immense value. The latest edition of the guide has been specifically produced to take account of the rapid changes taking place in technology I alluded to above, and contains a variety of new chapters designed to tackle issues such as Web advertising, the use of e-mail and mobile marketing. It was pleasing to note, however, that the IDM has done more than simply bolt on a few chapters to the existing guide. The opportunities afforded by
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 7 8 - 0 8 4 4 . I n t e r a c t i v e M a r k e t i n g . V O L . 4 N O . 4 . PP 410–414. APRIL/JUNE 2 0 0 3
Book Reviews
Broad focus lacks industry-specific nuances
Unique and essential
new technology and their integration with other elements of the direct marketing mix pervade the remainder of the text. In short the latest edition is far more than a merely ‘cosmetic’ upgrade. Topical issues have been carefully integrated throughout. While I would certainly commend the guide to interactive marketers, the text does have one key drawback. In its three volumes it endeavours to provide guidance across the whole gamut of direct and interactive marketing activity. The consequence of this broad focus is that inevitably there is insufficient space to deal with industry-specific matters. Best practice and the ‘rules’ associated therewith often vary somewhat from one context to another. Charity interactive marketing, for example, is a little different from that undertaken by financial service providers. While the guide contains generic advice that is applicable irrespective of the sector in which an organisation might be operating, it cannot and does not attempt to deal with the nuances of professional practice in each respective industry. Overall, however, the guide does an excellent job of covering a wide range of topics and covering them well. The IDM has chosen its authors with the utmost care and has deliberately selected individuals at the cutting edge of professional practice in their field. It thus contains a wealth of information and advice that would be of value to practitioners irrespective of how ‘long in the tooth’ they might be. It is unique in this respect, fulfilling a distinctive need in the market. No other text presently on the market provides such a wealth of practical and topical information and as a consequence no organisation serious about enhancing the quality of its direct and interactive marketing can afford to be without a copy of this ‘bible’ on its bookshelf. Adrian Sargeant M IDM Professor of Marketing Henley Management College, UK
Marketing Mayhem Herschell Gordon Lewis Racom Direct, 2001; 270pp; hardback; ISBN 0-9704515-3-9; $39.95
Devastating and funny
This book reads like the extended script of a well-rehearsed, muchrepeated stage performance. Seen and heard in the flesh, this author has the ability to keep the largest audience awake even through the dog watch that follows a conference luncheon (wine on the house). In cold print the style can be a mite hard to take — at any rate in lengthy doses. The writing is staccato, and American-demotic rather than English; there is a good deal of repetition, and the positive advice (particularly in the final three pages) is, in sharp contrast to the devastating attacks on marketing malpractice which form the bulk of the book, too often unspecific and bland. That said, the author’s targets are well chosen, and his criticism as merited as it is trenchant. He pulls no punches, and some of his examples and comments are extremely funny. (The live performance is a riot.) So what are the targets? Item: commercial overload in TV (up now to
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 7 8 - 0 8 4 4 . I n t e r a c t i v e M a r k e t i n g . V O L . 4 N O . 4 . PP 410–414. APRIL/JUNE 2 0 0 3
411
Book Reviews
Pet hates
What not to do
15 minutes in the hour). Item: sugging (selling under the guise of a survey). Item: asterisks (as in ‘250 hour free trial’ offered by AOL in 16pt bold, followed overleaf by a footnote spelling out, in 3pt mice type, ‘250 hour free trial must be used within one month of initial sign-on’). Item: acronyms (an insidious takeover plot hatched by computer nerds). Item: people who talk about ‘paradigm shifts’ and other inventors of new terms to describe old ideas. Item: the contradiction in CRM between relationship and management. Item: idiots who print PERSONAL or IMPORTANT on envelopes, together with bulk-mailing postage-paid impressions. Item: the fashionable obsession with branding, and other triumphs of form over substance (as in automobile advertising). Item: help menus and automated voice response menus. And dozens more. For every hate object examples are given, often with the names of delinquent companies. These examples are all American, and some of them could not happen in Europe for legal reasons. Others are exaggerated examples of trends one can observe already growing in the UK. Unchecked, they will grow further. There is one crucial piece of advice that I would like to see engraved on the desk of every chairman, managing director, marketing director and sales director in the country: ‘Call your own company’s service or techsupport line as though you were a customer.’ That precious nugget apart, this book will not give you too many positive lessons on how to be a better direct marketer. Except that it will give you a whole lot of excellent advice on what not to do — and perhaps even make you blush once or twice (it did me). And, at a few pages a day, it will provide much amusement. Robin Fairlie, F IDM
The Company of the Future Frances Cairncross Profile Books, 2002; 228pp; hardback; ISBN 1 86197 405 1; £17.99
The effect of the Internet
412
Books on management are of three kinds: those written by academics and philosophers of management, such as Ronald Coase who taught at the London School of Economics before the war, or James Burnham whose The Managerial Revolution (1941) is still read today; those written by famous, or notorious, practitioners — the names of Jack Welch, the imposing Louis Gerstner (IBM) and our own John Harvey-Jones spring to mind; and finally books by journalists and commentators who derive their knowledge from observation and analysis. The Company of the Future is from the shallow end of this last pool. Its main argument is that the Internet has so transformed relationships within and without the company that nothing less than new corporate structures supported by new management skills can do justice to the new opportunities. Frances Cairncross, management editor at The Economist, prefaces her ten chapters of advice and exhortation with ‘Ten Rules for Survival’ specifically addressed to managers. I shall quote the headlines of the first
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 7 8 - 0 8 4 4 . I n t e r a c t i v e M a r k e t i n g . V O L . 4 N O . 4 . PP 410–414. APRIL/JUNE 2 0 0 3
Book Reviews
Business as usual?
Heterogeneous concepts
four; they give you the flavour of her imperatives: ‘Manage Knowledge’, ‘Make Decisions’, ‘Focus on Customers’, ‘Manage Talent’, and so on. In other words, business as usual. For when has it not been true that managers have to make the most of their companies’ collective knowledge, take decisions, focus on customers and handle creative spirits? Cairncross argues, of course, that the mass of available knowledge, the speed at which decisions have to be made, the expectations of customers and even the footlooseness of creative individuals have changed to a degree that constitutes a change in kind. Perhaps so, but she does not help her argument for a new homo manageriens by using ‘computing power’ and ‘the Internet’ interchangeably. Some of the characteristics of post-modern business, such as globalisation and controlling and communicating with a dispersed workforce, may indeed owe much to the Internet, but many others, possibly more significant, among them real-time transactions, the ability to construct complex business models and the holding and processing of myriad data, have nothing to do with the Net and everything to do with computing power. This is not a mere pedantry: a book that purports to tell managers how to meet the challenges of rapid change has to be rigorous in its thinking and precise in its formulations. While Cairncross writes agreeably, even urbanely (a few mid-Atlantic solecisms notwithstanding), look at this statement which appears on page 173: ‘. . .the Internet will not be the only force driving change. Others, such as globalisation and the constant search for talent, will also have a continuing impact.’ What a ragbag! The Internet is a tool; globalisation is not a force but the result of various forces coming together; the search for talent is neither of the above but a means to an end. To see such heterogeneous concepts lumped together is no confidence builder. The individual chapters are fairly standard rehearsals of the managerial repertoire. In Chapter 1 the author tells us what we already know: that more knowledge is available to managers (and their employees) faster than ever before, and that only discriminating use will unlock its benefits. What is new is that the customer can now be allowed ‘inside the machine’, whether on the mundane level of tracking the delivery of a parcel, or monitoring the production of a customised motor car as it moves along the assembly line. Chapter 2 mentions what the Internet is really good at: locating knowledge, facilitating communication, promoting collaboration. Cairncross believes that this represents a revolution on a par with the Industrial Revolution, where the harnessing of steam and later electricity shrank distances and allowed the performance of repetitive tasks without muscle power. I think a more sophisticated economist would have ascribed at least as much economic empowerment to the advent of limited liability and the separation of management from ownership. Chapter 3 deals with customers and brands. For an audience of direct marketers, this is very thin gruel. We know so much more than the author when it comes to the finer points of branding and customer relations.
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 7 8 - 0 8 4 4 . I n t e r a c t i v e M a r k e t i n g . V O L . 4 N O . 4 . PP 410–414. APRIL/JUNE 2 0 0 3
413
Book Reviews
No new dimension
Corporate culture
‘Just in time’ is not new
Transaction costs vs prime costs
414
The next chapter, on recruitment and training, suffers from the pervading fault: everything in it makes the same good sense, whether preor post-Internet. All that the Internet adds is sweep and choice, but no new dimension. In a later chapter Cairncross discusses talent sharing between companies as an answer to the scarcity of skills. But even this has been going on for ever. Opera houses the world over, fierce rivals though they are, talent share, just as advertising agencies and film companies compete, yet dip into the same pool of creative talent. The days of tied talent are long gone. The chapter on corporate culture is interesting for its anecdotal material and some useful remarks about the Internet (and intranets) as a means of getting close to the workforce. Jack Nasser’s weekly chat to Ford employees was a splendid innovation. Unfortunately he lost his job before the fruits of simultaneously addressing a worldwide audience could be garnered. A low point is reached in the chapter on purchasing. Is there really anything new to be said about buying ‘just in time’, constantly checking out new suppliers, allowing them to participate in the production process rather than keeping them at arm’s length? This was done by the best practitioners long before the Internet was dreamt of. Think Marks & Spencer. The sense of dissatisfaction mounts as one reads on. Is one learning anything new, or just having one’s knowledge tidied up and labelled? Perhaps a definition of what management is — art, science or jargonfest? — might have helped, for it could then have become clear whether there needs to be a ‘new and improved’ model of a modern manager. Just when one begins to harbour negative thoughts, the author comes up with something worthwhile: in the chapter on corporate strategies she covers (to me) new ground in discussing transaction costs versus prime costs, and asking if the energy spent on dodging around for the cheapest deal is as profitable as long-term arrangements with fewer suppliers and the benefit of their input into every part of one’s business. This requires fine judgment, and not every manager gets it right. The BBC’s ‘internal market’ in which much time was spent bargaining for services within the corporation was a managerial device that has its detractors. Another useful insight offered by Cairncross relates to the changing corporate structure. She reminds us that ‘flatter and looser’ requires disciplines laid down at the centre: wider distribution of knowledge (equals power) demands strict operating standards that are understood and enforced, and objectives that are agreed and promulgated, lest the loose rein and absence of hierarchy lead to chaos and loss of focus. As a manager one might have liked to read more about risk management in this brave new world, and about budgeting and forecasting. Computers have transformed that scene; is there really nothing to say about the impact of the Internet? This leaves one more question: will reading this book make you a better manager? Perhaps not, but it may raise your awareness and make you more articulate about your profession. Victor Ross F IDM
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 7 8 - 0 8 4 4 . I n t e r a c t i v e M a r k e t i n g . V O L . 4 N O . 4 . PP 410–414. APRIL/JUNE 2 0 0 3
