Writing Marketing

Marketing is a very diverse discipline, dealing with everything from the costs of globalisation to the benefits of money-back guarantees. However, there is one thing that all marketing academics share. They are writers. They publish or perish. Their careers are advanced, and their reputations are enhanced, by the written word.

Despite its importance, writing is rarely discussed, much less written about, by marketing scholars. It is one of the least understood, yet most significant, academic competencies. It is a competency in need of careful study.

Writing Marketing is the first such study. It offers a detailed reading of five renowned marketing writers, ranging from Ted Levitt to Morris Holbrook, and draws lessons that can be adopted, with profit, by everyone else. Although it is not a “how to” book – there are no lengthy lists of dos and don'ts – Writing Marketing reveals that the “rules” of good writing are good for nothing. Near enough.

The above bumph is taken from the back cover, as its unspeakable immodesty implies. Sorry about that. By way of an apology, please accept this small token of my appreciation, The Mother of All Indexes. This was submitted as part of the original manuscript, but my esteemed editor at Sage wanted a more conventional index. Sorry about that. Again!

Contents

1. The ABCs of Writing Marketing

2. The Antinomies of Theodore Levitt

3. The Spectres of Kotlerism

4. The Deconstruction of Shelby D. Hunt

5. The Biopoetics of Wroe Alderson

6. The Anxieties of Morris B. Holbrook

7. The 3Rs of Marketing Writing

The Appendix of Stephen Brown

The Endnotes of the Exercise

The Mother of All Indexes