Despite being nearly 1000 pages long, this is one book that I often travel with on business, due to the completeness and accessibility of the content.

This encyclopedic, incredible resource includes chapters and many case studies on:

* the marketing process: marketing in a changing world- satisfying human needs; marketing and society- social responsibility and ethics; strategic marketing planning.

* the marketing setting: the marketing environment; the global marketplace; market information and research.

* buyer behaviour- consumer markets; business markets; and buyer behaviour.

* core strategy- market segmentation and targeting; positioning; building customer satisfaction through quality, value and service; creating competitive advantage: competitor analysis; and marketing strategies.

* product- designing products- new product development and lifecycle strategies; designing products- products, brands, packaging and services; marketing services.

* price- pricing policies- considerations and approaches; pricing products- strategies.

*promotions- promoting products- communications & promotion strategy; promoting products- advertising, sales promotion and PR; promoting products- personal selling and sales management;

* place- placing products- distribution channels & logistics management; placing products- retailing and wholesaling,.

It's well written, well supported with references, attractively illustrated, and easy to read at chapter level down to sidebar level (I've never read from end to end in one sitting!). The only complaint, is that because of the broad and deep coverage beyond traditional marketing, newer breaking ideas are not covered.

Overall highly recommended, particularly with a slimmer latest "fad" business/ technology/ marketing book to confirm that you are not missing anything that may add value to your organisation or clients.

[Refers to European Edition ISBN 0131659030 by Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders, Wong 1996 ]

This book is one of the best marketing books. The content of book is very comprehensive and embellished with cases that help you better understand the marketing theory. Especially, the most fascinating aspect of the book is its chapters about INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY and its impacts on the marketing concepts.

You can buy this book even for its excellent cases. I strongly recommend this book to all MBA students whose interested field is marketing.

I am college student who just took an intro- level marketing class with the Kotler & Armstrong text. It was comprehensive, interesting and provided an exciting look at Marketing. Kotler and Armstrong integrate real life companies with various marketing techniques and analyze those techniques. Professors, USE THIS BOOK!!

Diamond and Pintel's 5th Edition continues to focus solely on Retail Buying for the Fashion (softlines) industry. The focus is on high end retailers Macys, Nieman Marcus and The Limited. There is only cursory mentions of other retail types.

While some of their basic principles are sound, the technology is 20 - 30 years behind the times. Therefore, a student interested in improving their marketability is sorely served by text that constantly refers to paper forms, "the growing use of computers" and the increased use of the UPC.

Only a good read if you are interested in how retail fashion buying was conducted in the 1970's.