The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time

by Chris Murray, Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Since 1978, Soundview Executive Book Summaries has offered its subscribers condensed versions of the best business books published each year. Soundview’s summaries have won it acclaim as the definitive selection service for sophisticated business book readers.

For the first time ever, Soundview is bringing together summaries of seventeen essential marketing classics in a single volume. The Marketing Gurus includes two all-new,
previously unpublished summaries—The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.

Other featured books include:



Positioning by Jack Trout and Al Ries
Kotler on Marketing by Philip Kotler
The Popcorn Report by Faith Popcorn
The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Relationship Marketing by Regis McKenna And more

The Marketing Gurus distills thousands of pages into fewer than three hundred, making it ideal for busy professionals, students, and anyone curious about how marketing has evolved.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the summaries contained in this book to be a bit hit & miss. I struggled occassionally as many of the examples & anecdotes were quite dated, the book was published in 2006 but covers summaries of marketing texts from more than two decades earlier. Not such a problem in themselves, these books can't help that they were written years ago, but I felt that whoever had written the summaries could have addressed or acknowledged this better (or at all). I'd hoped I might come away from reading this with a list of other marketing books I'd be keen to look up, as it is I'd probably only seek out one or two of the 17 covered, and even these relate to areas that I was already interested in.

[Ayat Saleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Normally, any research starts by background reading in which the key players in that research topic should be identified. This book is a great start for any marketing management research. if you are new to marketing, then this book will introduce you to the main gurus so you can start building your knowledge in this area. Later on, more books and resources are needed as this book will act only as a base.

[Kai Shuen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An introductory and cursory read of 12 marketing books in one go. The book serves to give an exposure on these marketing concepts. Often times the concepts are not clearly articulated, thus not well understood when read. However, the book is good enough to provide exposure on these concepts so that if you would like to know more about them, you can pick up the actual book to read. It is also interesting to read this book now after almost 15 years since it was published, we can see which concepts and examples in the book are evergreen and can withstand the test of time. My personal favorite chapter is 'The Popcorn Report', a very enlightening read with bold predictions from the author, Faith Popcorn.

[mostly meri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marketing isn’t about shouting. It’s about seeing.

Murray’s compendium mirrors Godin’s ethos: the best marketing serves, it doesn’t sell.

By summarizing texts like Purple Cow and Relationship Marketing, the book surfaces timeless truths:
• Remarkable products market themselves (Godin’s “Purple Cow”)
• Empathy trumps persuasion (McKenna’s Relationship Marketing)
• Niches > masses (Kotler’s Lateral Marketing)

But here’s the tension: these ideas feel both eternal and outdated. Linda’s 2013 review nails it: the 1990s radio ad examples? Obsolete. The VW Beetle case study? Still golden.

The lesson: principles endure, tactics decay.

[Fernando Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, learned a lot from different marketers.

[Sneha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only marketing concept that felt current was Philip Kotler's!

[Soumya Jain · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hopelessly dated. Avoid at all costs, unless you want to research how off-the-mark cutting edge marketing thinking can appear with the passage of a few decades.

[Cj Rey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wildly outdated but still some hidden gems—and plenty of good reminders.

[Ruth Gates · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is packed full of lessons.
It is a book to read and pause and then pick it up again.
Requires time to digest some of the valuable lessons.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I greatly appreciated the idea behind "Marketing Gurus" - take 20 top marketing books and condense them down to the good stuff: how to get products to customers' hands and make them like paying for it. Some books have been so quoted and emulated (like "Relationship Marketing" and "Unleashing the Killer App") that it's nearly useless to go over their lessons. Some are completely outdated (like "Up the Loyalty Ladder", still burbling on about snappy ads on radio and newspaper channels), using examples from the 1990's. I found a few, like Seth Godin's "Purple Cow", "Don't Think Pink", and "The Discipline of Market Leaders" to be more instructive than I had assumed. "They'll just be talking about demographics the whole time", I thought, "and everyone should know that grandmas on porch swings know more about human behavior than demographics analysts." Godin's point that a good product (or service) is its own best advertising, via word-of-mouth of satisfied customers (like the Volkswagen Beetle), is a good offset against my perception of his message ("be outrageous and customers will come!!"). "Don't Think Pink" said some obvious things (women need more segmented marketing than just flowering packaging), and non-obvious things (women engage in more up-front research than men because they hate products that waste time). Overall, would probably buy this book again for $4-$5, for the sheer privilege of knowing snippets of these author's works.

[Jim Rossi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Marketing," said Peter Drucker, "is seeing your business through the customer's eyes." The Marketing Gurus features the best marketing writing since Drucker in condensed book format. It's a whole marketing bookshelf in one volume, and you can jump in anywhere you like. Some sections I did not read; others, like Rosen's "Anatomy of Buzz," I read three times. My expression for this is, "News You Can Use."

[Kenneth]

So far it feels like a "reader's digest" of hollow marketing texts. I refer to them as texts because the summaries feel just like a compilation of cliff's notes of your favorite business school curriculum. Still all of the concepts are fascinating. Not a good leisurely read though -- I dont know if i should expect it to be considering the subject matter :/

[April]

Changed my mind and didn't read

[Velvetink]

daughter bought it

[Lori Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read book on market reference guide for the knowledge worker, manager, executive, or entrepreneur.

[Dan MacInnis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great commentary on marketing strategy from all the top marketers including Seth, Guy, Jack and Kolter.