Book review
This is a very comprehensive account covering many aspects of both marketing and econometrics. It is certainly a fairly dense book in the amount that is packed into its three principal sections. These sections cover market response models in stationary markets, evolving markets and solving marketing problems with econometric and time series models. The structure of the book is logical, beginning with justifying the need for market response models and then preparing the ground for applying the models. Good use is made of tables to achieve such aims as assessing data sources and the key characteristics of different models. I found the introductory section (chapters 1 and 2) to be particularly readable and to give a good lead into the subsequent chapters.
However, in section two of the book, the authors, I feel, cover too much ground at the expense of detail and the use of worked-through examples which would help the readers, particularly the student reader. The authors do give copious references—but it is a pity that, to really understand some of the models in this section, it is likely that readers would have to follow these up; unfortunately, the authors do little to evaluate the contribution of this material. There are some important papers, which perhaps should have been eluded to, for example, when discussing market growth models in chapter three, a reference to Meade's (1984) paper could have been made. In chapter three, there is an adequate description of estimation and testing, but there is a need for inclusion of numerical examples. Also, the authors do not spend much time on the use of errors for diagnosing model fit and how to improve models.
In section 3, the book picks up with consideration of market response in evolving markets, and again, there is good coverage of the approaches but no numerical-based examples. That being said, I think there is a great deal of good information in the two chapters that make up this section. A motivation for reviewing this book was that I was asked to review procedures by a company in Scotland for modelling evolving markets, and I found the contents and discussion in chapters 6 and 7 to be very useful.
In the final section, the use of time series models is discussed. The section begins with a chapter on managerial implications, this I found very insightful and gave, for me, a good overview of the practicalities of using the models. But more on management's bias and use of judgement would help those academics who end up applying the approaches outlined in the book. Of particular interest to readers of this journal is the inclusion of a chapter, new in the second edition, on marketing plans and sales forecasting. This is an important chapter, and it is hard to imagine that a book on market response did not include this in previous editions. Generally, the chapter is good, and there is an up-to-date discussion on judgmental methods. But again, there is a weakness arising from the lack of numerical examples, and there is insufficient discussion on the implementation of forecasting systems.
The book concludes with a chapter on implementation of response models, which is good and does expose some real issues. However, there is little practical advice given to the overpressured marketing manager.
Apart from the lack of examples, which will limit the appeal to student reader, this book does provide an encyclopaedic review of market response models, and one of the major strengths is the exhaustive referencing. For anyone getting seriously involved with market response and the use of econometric and time series models, this book is recommended as an ideal starting place. There are, however, some other limitations. Notably, the treatment of the use of data mining is rather superficial, and, given the increasing use of scanner data, there is a need to expand on these techniques and also to consider further the use of information technology in the incorporation and capturing, the storing and the analysis of data. There is no discussion on the use of software packages. Such a discussion would have been helpful to practitioners. Also, I do not think the little boxed vignettes add very much, other than to reassure readers that some companies use the methods—these if expanded would be useful teaching aids. Overall, this book is good and I have learned a great deal from reviewing the text.
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